My new favorite picture of Alex

This was taken the morning of his birthday and I absolutely love it. Those dimples just about kill me. Seriously, could this kid be any cuter? The mornings have been chilly here before warming up so I put this cardigan on him and I didn't want to take it off him all day even though it was 80 degrees. He just looks so adorable and grown up that I just want to squeeze and kiss him all day. Still can't believe he's 2!!!!

We had a fun day celebrating yesterday (and today) so I'll have lots to blog about what we did for the Goober's big day. For those of family and friends not following me on Instagram, here's a link to my photos that catalog a little bit of it to keep you happy until I can make time to blog it all officially.

Because I want to

 There's not much I wanted to say but I thought I'd post a couple pics of my boy simply because I think he's adorable. He was sitting relatively still and quiet on the couch the other morning so I grabbed my camera and snapped a couple photos of him before he got annoyed and ran off to cause some mayhem.

It didn't take too long for him to get jittery and leave but I'm glad I caught a few pics of him. He's due for a haircut too, although I kinda love his longish hair, and this week we're buzzing it off. The kid's got to look good for his birthday this week!

The countdown to 2

This coming Friday on September 14th, my baby will be two years old. It feels like this birthday is a big deal because he'll be past the point of me calling him a baby, and that's going to be hard to get used to. Alex is pretty small for his age, so it's easy for me to pretend that he's still a baby when in fact he is a full-on, busy, crazy toddler and I need to face the music. I'm just not sure I'm ready for that.

For a long time, Alex was a momma's boy but that has all changed and he's 100% a daddy's boy now. Life is so not fair sometimes.

One of his favorite things to do is sit and eat with Chris, especially if he's eating Frosted Mini Wheats. I love that he loves his daddy- they are so cute together and their relationship is really special.

And a sweet kiss to daddy for sharing. I just love these two.

I have a kindergartner

The day has finally come. Brendan officially started kindergarten today and he couldn't have been more excited. Me? I had a crazy amount of nervous, excited, happy and sad butterflies in my stomach all morning. I was a whole mess of emotions but I somewhat expected that. My firstborn going off to school for the first time is a big deal!

If you can't tell, he was more than ready to go. His teacher, Mrs. Lo, asked them to wear their favorite t-shirt to class today and so Angry Birds Space shirt it was. Not my ideal first day of school outfit but boys don't really care about that kind of stuff.

 I had to get one of me and my big boy to commemorate this day.

I love this one because Alex photo bombed it. He was not so thrilled about Brendan going to kindergarten. The only thing he did like was seeing the school buses that were outside the school. Everything else, not so much. He knew something was going down and that it did not revolve around him, so we was a bit cranky. Ah, two year olds (can you believe he'll be two in 10 days!!!).

Chris and his mini-me.

 He looks so little compared to his giant backpack. I was sooooo glad that we were able to convince him to get a normal backpack and not one with SpongeBob, Cars, or Star Wars all over it though.

This was outside of his school. Once he saw how many kids there were, he got a little overwhelmed but as always, he was a trooper and got in line to wait to go inside. And somehow I managed not to hover too much or cry (which was seriously a miracle). The only moment I thought I might lose it was when he turned to find me in the crowd of parents and said "I think I want to stay home". Luckily, he saw the boy behind him in line was wearing a Lego Ninjago shirt and they bonded over their love of Lego's, thus putting an end to his nervousness. I'm so proud of my little man.

I finally shed a few tears once we pulled into our garage, especially since Alex kept point to Brendan's empty seat in our minivan saying "Brendan- Brendan- Brendan". I don't think Alex quite knows what to do with himself without his partner in crime.

After picking him up, we went out for celebratory slurpees and talked about his first day. His verdict- "There are a lot of rules in kindergarten, Mom. It's kinda different than my old school." I got a laugh out of that. Love this boy and can't wait to see what the school year brings and to watch him grown and learn. Day 1 done!

What's up

First, I have a video to share that I thought were cute and would make up for my lack of posting and lack of photos. Warning though, no one but our family may be interested in these though. It's' not super exciting but it is cute (in my very unbiased opinion).

This is a little clip of Alex talking, which I find hilarious. He's really into "talking" lately and loves to babble at me in his own sweet, incoherent way with a few real words thrown in for good measure. I love hearing him talk and it never fails to make me laugh and smile. I love this stage that he's in right now.

I do have another video to share but for some reason, blogger isn't letting me upload it so I'm trying out Vimeo to see if that works. I love this video because it captures perfectly how Alex loves to do anything and everything that Brendan does. I love that Alex already worships his older brother. Melts my heart, it does.

The Boys from Valerie Near on Vimeo.

Other than that, I don't have much to share. We're getting ready for school to start soon and have been busy going to doctors and going shopping and trying to have some last minute summer fun. I could do without the doctor part but it is what it is. My health hasn't been the best lately with my gallbladder somehow managing to bother me even though it's been removed.

Here's a crappy cell phone photo of me getting ready to go in and get an MRI done. Good news is that the results were totally normal... which is great except I have no idea why I was in so much pain. I'm seeing a gastroenterologist to see if he can figure out what's going on with me.

That's about it. Hope you enjoyed the videos!

You can run, you can hide but you can't escape

Thank goodness we have a fence for our (tiny) yard or else Alex might be the terror of the neighborhood. He's a hard one right now. The boy is really good at pushing me to the edge of insanity so I often let him play out in our ridiculously small yard to blow off some steam so I can get a tiny break. If it wasn't fenced, Alex would have no problem taking off and running away. As it is, he tries every single day to climb over the fence.

 He's so close but he can't quite make it over- THANK GOODNESS.

But that doesn't stop him from trying. He even tests it out in different spots just to make sure he can't get over.

Here, he was trying to see if he could squeeze through the slats. No luck there either, bud.

This kid kills me. In a good way and a bad way. I had forgotten how frustrating and exhausting it is to have an almost 2 year old (I can't believe he'll be 2 in about a month!!!). I definitely have a lot of moments when I think we're done having kids because I don't know if I can handle much more right now. But then Alex is so sweet and adorable and so much like a little boy right now, that I miss that baby stage. I guess there's still hope for a Near girl. :)

It's all happening at the zoo

We recently checked out the Hogle Zoo, once just the three of us and another time with my freshman year roomie and her family. The boys really loved the zoo despite the fact that Alex was a little freaked out by some of the animals.

 Alex and Brendan liked the monkey's a lot but their big gorilla was a little too much for Alex. He was fine until the gorilla started to move and then the tears came. Poor boy.

 Brendan was more interested in climbing on the animal statues and rocks around the zoo than the actual animals a lot of the time. Typical.

 The seals and the polar bear were my favorite. So cool.

 Brendan was upset because he thought he would get to swim with the polar bear.

Brendan has a new BFF- my friend's little brother Isaac. Seriously, Brendan was a little smitten with him and it was so totally cute. The twins were such a big help with our kids too. I wish I could take them everywhere with me!

By far, the biggest hit with the boys was the train ride (Alex is obsessed with trains right now) and the carousel.

 It was hard trying to get a picture of Alex on the carousel because he was so interested in it. He wouldn't look at me and the one time he did, it was so quick he's a little blurry.

 Brendan loved it too but not as much as Alex. Alex screamed (of course) once it was time to get off and I may have had to drag him away from it a little bit. But an overpriced icee helped to distract them so we could move on.

The zoo also has a cool playground for the kids and they both had a blast running around and being crazy before we headed home.

A big thanks to Lindsay for letting us tag along and hopefully we can go back again soon. It was fun for the kids and awesome for me to get to spend some time with a friend that I hadn't seen for a couple of years.