Happy Easter!

Where Did the Week Go?

Last weekend and this past week have been pretty much a blur to me. I had a really busy week and was only able to be home on Tuesday night. 

Last Friday we left Brennen at my parent's house since KU played at 9pm. They ended up with another win!

Saturday we got up and went to get Brennen then had a really boring day. We ended up getting 5-6 more inches of snow. Blah! I am so over the cold weather and especially the snow.  Sunday we were pretty much snowed in all morning but did manage to dig ourselves out Sunday afternoon to go watch KU play and make it into the Sweet 16...Rock Chalk!

I was bored being snowed in so decided to bake some Oreo stuffed brownies!

Snow day playdoh fun :)

Sunday night I made BBQ Chicken tacos with Blue Cheese Slaw...delicious!

I had dinner plans Monday with the girls from work. Tuesday I made this tomato florentine soup  that was so yummy.

I was off Wednesday so my mom and I ran some errands. 

I absolutely LOVE my days off with my little man! 

Wednesday night Ryan and I went to Bonefish with my parents for my birthday dinner so B got to spend some time with Nana & Papa. We had a great time and it is always so yummy! 

My mom and I had another dinner planned last night and Ryan had his end of the season basketball banquet, so my dad took B to have pizza and to the park.  They ended their night with ice cream, so I think B had a great night!

I am so glad it is Friday!  Even though the week seemed to fly by, having something to do every night has made me exhausted and there isn't going to be any slowing up over the weekend.  KU plays tonight at 6:30.  Ryan's family is coming in town late tonight so we are spending tomorrow with them and I have to make everything I am taking for Easter on Sunday. We have Ryan's family at 11am and my family at 3pm. It looks like B will be napping in the car from one place to the next.  At least the weather is supposed to be beautiful and in the 60's all weekend, so it should be a good time!

Hope you all have a wonderful Easter!

Playing Catch-up!

I am catching up from taking Monday and Tuesday off this week, so I am going to post about last weekend and this week. Ryan was on Spring Break, so he has been enjoying spending extra time with Brennen.

Last Friday night we headed over to our friends Matt & Rachel's house to watch the KU game.  Their daughter Harper who just turned one and Brennen had a blast playing together!

Playing with the loud ball popper during the game. The guys were not too happy about their choice of toy!

Enjoying the beautiful weather at halftime!

Saturday the weather turned cold again, so B and I stayed home while Ryan went out to the Sporting Kansas City game and then we all headed back over to Matt & Rachel's for the championship KU game.  It was a great game for the Jayhawks who are now the Big 12 champs....Rock Chalk! 

Sunday was St. Patrick's Day and we were hoping to go to the parade, but with rain/sleet and temps in the 30's there was no way we were getting out! 

We celebrated my birthday on Monday. I have entered the last year in my 20's!  I had an amazing day being spoiled by my boys.  Ryan brought B into bed to wake me up and hearing him say "Good morning, Happy Birthday Mommy" was one of the best gifts of all! We went to breakfast and went shopping, which if you know my husband is quite surprising!  We met my family for lunch then headed to Ryan's parent's for dinner.  It was a perfect day :)

At the mall!

We made a stop at Lowe's and B had no problem entertaining himself!

I really couldn't have asked for a better birthday! I am so lucky to have such an amazing family and wonderful friends. I am looking forward to the year ahead and to finding out what is in store for us!

Tuesday my mom hosted her annual Easter party for our family friends.  There were 15 kids and 9 adults. I always tell her she goes completely overboard, but the kids have so much fun and everything always turns out great! We colored Easter eggs, had a yummy lunch, hunted for eggs outside even though it was very chilly (around 40 degrees only) and enjoyed letting the kids play and the adults talk. It was such a fun day!

The whole group!

So proud of himself :)

Jackets & gloves were required to hide all the eggs...brrrrr!

The big kids finding eggs

And the little ones!

Brennen opening his Easter basket from Grandma!

Yesterday morning while I was getting ready for work Brennen was fussing and moving around in bed, but I could tell he wasn't ready to get up.  When I told Ryan goodbye, I told him that I didn't see Brennen in his bed on the monitor, so he might want to get up and check on him. I was running late of course, so I didn't have time to go in his room.  When I got to work I texted Ryan asking if B was up or not and he sent me this pic...

Poor guy had gotten out of bed and fallen back asleep on the floor! 

Ryan got some of the new Boulevard beer that came out this week. Boulevard teamed up with the Roasterie and developed a Coffee Ale. I tried it and it was actually really good.  He read that it paired well with fresh doughnuts so he immediately wanted to make some.  I guess when he was little his mom would make him homemade doughnuts.  So, last night when we went to the store we purchased what we needed to make the doughnuts. I was pretty skeptical about how good they would be, but two doughnuts and 4 doughnut holes later, I was convinced. They were delicious!

Brennen wasn't too sure about all the sugar all over his mouth and hands, but other than that he loved them too!

I am so glad it is Friday, but we are supposed to be getting another winter snow storm this weekend. I just saw we could get 7-10 inches.  I really hope they are wrong!  I don't think mother nature got the memo that it is supposed to be Spring.

March Madness is officially here and my husband spent yesterday and today with two tv's in the living room flipping back and forth through all the games.  I was lucky to be able to get him away to go the grocery store last night, but then it was back to watching basketball until we went to bed. I am looking forward to cheering on the Jayhawks tonight!  Hope everyone stays warm this weekend and we see some warmer temps next week.  I am getting really tired of having to be inside all the time!

Brennen 23 Months Old

Well, I only have one more month until I can say I have a 2-year-old!  I don't know why, but that just sounds so crazy to me.  I always imagined myself with kids and knew it would be a wonderful experience, but you really don't understand until you have a child of your own.  The amount of pure joy, excitement and energy Brennen brings us and the amount of love I have for this little boy is indescribable!  He is truly an amazing boy and the biggest blessing!

I have been busy, busy planning his birthday party and I can't wait to celebrate my big boy!  His personality comes out more and more each day and makes me fall in love with him more than I ever thought possible.  

My wonderful friend Crystal took some birthday pics of Brennen in the snow, so I thought I would share them today in anticipation of his birthday!  

- You are becoming quite an ornery little boy. If I ask you to do something you don’t want to do your first response is usually “no”, which you think is just hilarious. Then, I have to get stern and make you do it. 
- You are getting your two year molars in so you have been drooling like crazy! You are also extra clumsy these days which I think is due to teething.  You fall down all the time therefore you seem to always have a bump, bruise or cut on your face/head.

- You love to play ball at Grandma & Grandpa’s house in their hallway or shoot hoops at our house.

- You had a short span of having a little bit more trouble going to bed in your big boy bed this month.  You are getting very good at making excuses to get out of bed. You want to give Daddy at least 3 or 4 hugs and kisses and you have to kiss the dogs or else you get out of bed.

- You have figured out how to open doors so we have had to put child proof handles on some of the doors.

-  You are talking so clearly these days. I always tell you to ask nicely when you want something and you will say “please mommy can I have more crackers” or whatever it is you want. It is the cutest thing ever!!

- Your latest sweet obsession is pop.  Whenever we get a pop you ask for a drink and if I tell you to take one drink, you take the longest drink possible and think you are just so funny!

- You pretend talk on your play phone and it is so sweet. You usually talk to Grandma, Grandpa & Uncle Chris. You say they are playing or cooking in the kitchen or funny things like that.

- The way you say “hello” melts my heart. You still love to talk on the phone and you are actually really good at it.

- You can do the rock chalk chant and it is the sweetest thing!  You will just randomly start singing it. The other day you were talking to Grandpa on the phone and you probably sang it about 6 times in a row.

- You are ALL boy!  You love to play in the dirt, pick up sticks, throw rocks or anything for that matter!  You love to be outside and never want to go inside, even if it is freezing out.

- You are still in 24 month clothes, you have about outgrown your size 6 shoes and I am trying to convince you everyday to be done with diapers, but you still aren’t quite ready!  You are still in size 4 during the day and 5 at night.

I can't believe you have been in our lives for two years, even though it is hard to imagine my life before you! You have such an amazing gift of making people smile and I look forward to watching you grow everyday. You are my world and I love you so very much!

Yay it's Friday!

This week was a great week! I forgot how wonderful it is having Ryan home every night.  It is so much easier to keep up on house chores when there are two people helping!  Ryan is always extremely helpful, but during basketball season he wasn't getting home most nights until 8:30pm. The routine was pretty much get home, play with Brennen if he was still up, have dinner and go to bed.  Hopefully we would sit and watch some TV and chat for a little while before bed, but that wasn't always the case.  So this week having him home before me and getting to eat dinner together at a decent time was wonderful! 

We were able to go to Ryan's parent's house for dinner on Tuesday so all the boys could play.  They are so much fun to watch together :)

Watching Mickey Mouse on Caden's Kindle

Breakfast in bed!

Enjoying the nice weather on Thursday at the park with Grandma

Since it was supposed to get up to around 80 degrees today I decided to take off work for a few hours and go to the zoo with my mom and B. My mom and I bought a Friends of the Zoo pass this year so we could go more, and boy was it a good thing we did. The zoo was PACKED today!  The line for tickets was crazy but with our pass we walked right in. It was great!  We only had about 2 hours, but Brennen was ready for a nap and passed out on the car ride home!

I am so happy it is Friday!  I can't wait to get off work, head over to our friend's house to grill, enjoy being outside and cheer on the Jayhawks!  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend too and Rock Chalk!

Almost Recovered

I am almost fully recovered from my wisdom teeth surgery.  The recovery was a bit longer than I thought it was going to be, but thanks to my wonderful parents I was able to relax and get better much faster!

I had the surgery on Wednesday and Ryan took off work to take me.  He took some pretty funny video of me coming out of the anesthesia.  It was such a strange feeling being put to sleep and not remembering anything.  But I was very thankful not to know what was going on!  I pretty much slept most of the day and then my mom brought Brennen over to see us for about an hour around dinner time.  I was able to eat some pudding and some mashed potatoes that night.

Thursday Ryan had to go back to work and then had a basketball game in Topeka that night.  The varsity team made it to state and if they won Thursday night they would play again Friday and Saturday.  This meant he would have to stay overnight with the team on Friday. They won their game on Thursday but unfortunately lost on Friday.  They ended up winning their game on Saturday to take 3rd which is the best their school has ever finished!  I am so grateful for the opportunity he has had to coach at the high school level, but I am very excited for the season to come to an end.  I can't wait to have him home in the evenings!!

I spent Thursday and Friday still recovering and keeping up on my pain meds which kept me pretty much in a daze.  My amazing parents kept Brennen for 4 nights so I was able to get some much needed sleep! And they took care of me while Ryan was away. I was afraid B was never going to want to come back home because he was having so much fun!

Brennen and I did make it out to Harper's 1st birthday party on Saturday which was a ton of fun!

Ryan finally made it home around 7:30pm and we put B to bed right before 8pm. He actually fell asleep in my arms, which he hasn't done in a long time. It was so sweet because I was rocking him and Ryan was talking to him and the next thing we knew, he was out!  It was so nice that he went down early because we lost an hour of sleep due to daylight savings time :(

I miss rocking him to sleep so I didn't want to put him down!

Sunday was a very lazy day with a trip to the store and naps for everyone.

B all snuggled up after his bath!

I am still a bit sore, but finally feeling back to myself. I will just be glad when my teeth are completely heeled and I can eat again! We have a pretty boring week ahead and we aren't going to know what to do having Ryan home every night! 

Choo Choo!

Our good friends Crystal & Tristan just moved back home from North Carolina.  Tristan & Ryan lived together their first year in college and then Tristan & Crystal moved to Florida.  We managed to make 2 or 3 trips to see them. Then, they moved to North Carolina and we were finally able to go see them again last August. We are so excited for them to be back! They have a son, Landen, who is just 4 months younger than Brennen so we are so excited for them to get to grow up together!!

Saturday morning they called and invited us to go down to Union Station with them to just get out of the house.  It was such a wonderful, spontaneous morning and we all had a blast!

They have a train exhibit that the boys loved! 

After we played it was close to lunch time so we decided to walk over to Crown Center and have lunch at Fritz's.  We just didn't have enough trains yet!

The boys had so much fun together and it was great to get out of the house! We were there early enough to beat the rush and to get the boys home for their naps. 

The rest of our weekend was pretty uneventful. I didn't do much at all on Sunday so I am trying to get all the laundry done and the house cleaned before getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow.  Fun times!  I guess my week will go by quickly if I just sleep after my surgery.