A new toy

For my birthday a couple of weeks ago, Chris surprised me with a new 70-300mm lens for my camera (thanks, Chris!). We've had fun playing with it since and I wanted to share some photos- a lot of these were actually taken by Chris.

Could my boys get any cuter?

Brendan had just ran into a sharp corner and scratched his head, hence the tears and sad face. I couldn't resist taking some pictures of him but that made him cry even harder because he didn't want pictures of his cut.

 I love this one mostly because Alex's favorite toy of the afternoon was that Twix bar. He wouldn't let it out of his chubby hands all afternoon. By the end it was pretty smashed and melted but I still ate it anyways. :)

 Who knew that Brendan was such a good model?! He's got his posing down.

This was taken Thanksgiving morning and Alex was upset because he couldn't climb up on the couch- even with the help of the vacuum. His face cracks me up. Climbing and playing on the couches are his latest obsession.

Olives are always a part of our Thanksgiving and Brendan still loves to put them on his fingers.

 Alex also had fun chowing down on our feast that day.

Hope everyone had a good holiday and is gearing up for Christmas!

A little update on my Alex

I cut the Goober's hair last night and I have to admit that it breaks my heart a little every time I look at him now- he looks so much older and grown up! What did I do?! He's supposed to be my baby still and now he looks more like the 14 month old that he actually is. I can't bring myself to call him a toddler yet.

This is one of his crazy smiles that I see a lot. He's such a silly little guy and I love it. He loves to bite shoes, eat things off the floor, close himself in dark bathrooms and play with the remote to our tv. In fact, something inside of our remote now rattles because he's chucked it on the floor so many times. His goal in throwing it is to get the batteries to pop out (and he succeeds- I don't know how he figured this out) and then he chews on them. He LOVES to chew on batteries. What a weirdo!

Alex also loves to be naughty and get into everything and anything. He is becoming a seriously mischievous little boy. He still isn't walking yet but that doesn't deter him at all. I shudder to think what he'll do when he can walk and run. Maybe I should be glad he isn't walking? He'll take a few unaided steps to my outstretched arms but he does it with his eyes closed. And when you hold just one of his hands to walk with him, he walks in circles. It's pretty funny and we're enjoying this stage with all the adorable and amazing new things it brings. He says the most adorable "woof-woof", has developed a deep love for his shoes and constantly wants me to put them on him, loves peek-a-boo still, kills me with how clever he is, and gives the best open-mouth slobbery kisses hands down.

I really can't imagine our little family without him.

Halloween 2011

I love this picture. Brendan was so into Halloween this year. When I told him to smile for the camera, this is the pose he gave me complete with a very scary skeleton growl.

 Alex was a pirate and of course all good pirates must have mustaches and dark eyebrows.

 This is how he felt about having his face painted. He did not share Brendan's enthusiasm.

 Brendan and his posing seriously cracked me up. This was taken just before our church's annual Trunk or Treat. Brendan had a BLAST again this year.

 Alex discovered the bean bag toss and was finally happy.

 And even though this picture is slightly blurry, it's a favorite of mine. Alex got his first lolipop and went bananas for it. The boy was blue all over from it but he wouldn't let me clean him up until he had devoured the thing. Good times.

 This is really not a great picture but for memory keeping purposes, here's a shot of Brendan's preschool class. The kids had a Halloween parade followed by a fabulous party, which they all loved (of course).

 Halloween night we headed out for trick or treating and since the night was bit chilly, we bundle the Goober up. I didn't bother putting Alex in his pirate costume again since he wasn't getting any candy so instead he was Denver Nuggets fan.

Here's one of the three of us. I got the boys glow in the dark weapons so we could keep track of them in the dark and they were a huge hit. Smartest idea I've had in a while. Every time Brendan ran off to the next house, I always knew where he was and could point him out in a pack of kids.

The night was fun, much candy was collected, and when we got home Chris dug right in after we put the boys to bed. Good times were had by all!

Oh Alex

My baby loves to sit in small spaces like laundry baskets, a basket I use to store blankets, the box my knee-high boots came in, and this suitcase. He is constantly climbing in here so Chris finally put a pillow in the bottom to make it a bit more enjoyable for him.

He loves playing in Brendan's room (especially when Brendan isn't there) and the first thing he does is climb in his suitcase.

He'll grab a couple nearby toys and he's good to go. Every couple of minutes he'll look up to make sure I'm still there but otherwise he likes to be on his own. I love that he will quietly play by himself which means I can sit near him and read a book, check my email or do something productive like fold some laundry.

This is just one of the many funny, quirky things about Alex that I love.

Pick a fat pumpkin

Brendan has been singing a song that he learned at preschool for the last couple of weeks and it constantly gets stuck in my head. So you can often hear us singing "Pick, pick, pick a fat pumpkin" over here. And it was all because of a field trip his preschool had scheduled to a local pumpkin patch. Brendan was beyond excited and when the day finally came, he was asking every ten minutes when we were leaving.

When we got there, Brendan was so excited to do all the fun activities they had. He had a good time pretending to drive a tractor.

He got his face painted too.

He chose the skull and even though the artist's skills were a bit questionable, he loved it.

A bouncy-house with a slide was the very first thing he ran to. It was a little rough in there with about 6 boys inside at once but that's the way he likes it. Wild and crazy.

Josh and Brendan loved hanging out, as always, and when they walked by this donkey Brendan said "Look, Josh! A donkey's butt!" These days, it seems all of Brendan's jokes revolve around farts, burps, poop or now, a donkey's butt. My silly boy.

They also had a nice hay pit for the kids to play around in and Brendan loved throwing hay at the other kids.

That poor boy did not like it though and left crying. Whoops. I did feel bad about that but really, what do you expect to happen in a hay pit?

He also did some pumpkin bowling, pumpkin painting, a sketchy maze, a bean bag toss and general fun that involved running with friends. It was a good time and by the end, we were both exhausted.

I love this time of year and we are getting geared up for Halloween now. I can't wait to get the kids in their costumes!

Also, I never mentioned on here that I was cutting out sugar for the month of October and I now only have 1 week left! The time has actually gone by faster than I thought it would but I can't wait to eat chocolate again!!!

Don't you hate socks?

 The weather here in Virginia was finally cool enough to warrant long sleeves, pants and... socks!

Alex does NOT like socks at all and can't keep them on for more than a few seconds before he's trying to rip the suckers off.

He takes after me in that regard. I hate socks too so I can't really blame him!

He tries so hard

Alex seems to go back and forth between hating baths and loving them. Luckily, we are in a loving stage so bath time isn't so horrible for everyone involved. Recently, he's become infatuated with the faucet and trying to grab the water.
He is so determined to get a hold of it and if I try to move him out of the way or distract him with other toys, he screams.

Just looking at him, you wouldn't know that he has a scream that can make you feel like your ears are bleeding. Such a sweet innocent face- but I swear, I'm going deaf because of this boy! :)

My handsome boy just got more handsome

Last Friday, Brendan got glasses. We saw an opthamologist about two weeks ago and I sure was surprised that while doing an eye exam on my little guy we discovered that he couldn't see out of his left eye very well at all. So, glasses it was! Brendan went back and forth between being excited and being reluctant about his new glasses. He had fun picking them out and choosing his frames (with a little nudging from Mom, since he would have chosen bright blue frames- no joke) but when they finally came in and were ready to picked up, he didn't want to go.

They've taken some getting used to but now, he loves them. He got them right before General Conference so while we were watching on Saturday, he pointed to President Erying and said, "Look Mom, he has glasses like me!" Melted my heart.

We're still working on how to put them on and take them off correctly, making sure he wears them ALL the time- no taking them off until bedtime- and not letting Alex grab them. Brendan finds that particularly funny while I do not. Brendan has really taken this in stride though and has proven once again what a wonderfully sweet and good natured little boy he is. I'm so proud of him and glad that he can see correctly now!

Learning to ride a bike

We finally got around to getting a bike for Brendan. He was so excited for it he wanted to ride it to the checkout counter and home from the store, even though he didn't quite have the concept of peddling down yet and it was raining outside.

He had to wait two whole days (which is forever to a child) since the rain didn't let up but then finally we had a nice day and he could try out his new bike. He picked it up much quicker than I thought he would.

He was so proud of himself. I loved watching him concentrate so hard on what he was doing.

 Pretty soon he'll be doing these kind of tricks all on his own!

Go, Brendan, Go!

I can't resist buying stuff for my kids

Brendan's preschool is strange because they require the kids to use a bucket instead of a backpack for all their papers and projects. Lame! It's impossible to make a bucket look cool. So when we happened to find the perfect backpack for Brendan, I couldn't NOT get it for him even though he doesn't technically need one for any reason. It was too cool to pass up.

And he loves it of course. In fact, when we had to go to a doctor's appointment, Mario had to come with too.

Who knew the coolest backpack ever would be found at a smelly global food store? Well worth every cent, though!