A Day for the Fam...

Ryan and I see so little of each other throughout the week because of our opposite work schedules, & what precious time we do have we usually find ourselves trying to squeeze in a chance to be with the other friends and family that we love so much. So the opportunity to do something with just the three of us is few and far between. But this particular weekend we made it happen and went to a Parents As Teachers activity with Brendan. It was called "On the Go" and featured many city professionals and their vehicles. Some examples were policemen and their squad cars, firemen and a fire truck, EMT workers and an ambulance, highway patrol with a patrol boat, etc.

This event was right up his alley. Though it ended up being quite a cold & windy day, Brendan had a blast looking in on all of his favorite vehicles. He even got to go on his first school bus ride...which was his favorite of the day. Partially because it was a warm relief from the winds. Though he also really liked being on the big highway patrol boat. What a fun way to spend some family time.



Driving a mail truck:






Looking inside a dump truck:

Driving a Bobcat:

Brendan's First School Bus Ride:

They're yelling: "FIRE TRUCK!"

Brendan saves a life:

Baseball Day!

Cardinal's baseball is back! As is tradition, we went downtown prior to the opening day game to enjoy the pep rally at Kiener Plaza. This was the first year that I dared to bring Brendan. I pumped him up for the few days prior by referring to it as "Baseball Day!" Pretty soon, he caught on to my excitement and kept yelling "Baseball Day!!!" at random times. It was kind of a dreary one to begin with, but once the sun came out from behind the clouds, it warmed up a bit and wasn't too bad of a day. We drove out with Uncle Shane and his best friend, Kurt. Once we arrived at Kiener plaza we met up with Mandy's Aunt Kathy, her daughter, Lynn, and Lynn's little boy. We all try to meet up every year, and this one was no exception. We enjoyed some live music, dancing, and fun. The excitement of what they call "Cardinal Nation" is something you just have to experience to understand. So much fun! After leaving downtown, we all went to watch the game at Mandy's cousins', Chad & Tara's house. There more family were able to join in the fun. Though the Cards lost the game in the 11th inning, we still have another fun-filled opening day to add to the memory books. And Brendan's 1st one at that.

Mandy's cousin, Lynn, and her baby, Tyler along with Mandy's Aunt Kathy. They join us every year, too:

Uncle Shane and his best man, Kurt:

Me and Bubba:

The fam (from left): Me, Brendan, Aunt Kathy, Lynn, & Shane (up top):

Feeding the "cardinal bird" a cheese-it:

Baby Tyler slept through the crazy noise of the band! Couldn't believe it.

Brendan Sings a Song

I realized that I haven't posted anything in awhile. Though we're busy as always, we haven't had much new to report over the last month or so. Brendan is still growing like crazy and he has recently developed full sentences. It's pretty amazing to be able to hold full conversations. We love it! With full sentences, came the chance to finally fully participate in songs. Though they still remain rather tuneless, we can at least tell what he's singing now. Here is Brendan's performance of Twinkle, Twinkle:

A Treat for Brendan

We are so proud of our boy. We have been working on potty training for the last couple of weeks. And though we can't say it's been going smoothly, we are definitely making progress. As a reward for all of his hard work, I decided at the last minute to take him to the Sesame Street Live show: Elmo's Healthy Heroes. Daddy had to work, so for some extra help, we were gladly joined by Brendan's NaNa and BawBaw. I was a little worried about how he would react to the characters going into the show. You see, Brendan has a very big fear of anyone dressed up. Especially the larger-than-life mascot kind. But I was hopeful that because he knows the characters of Sesame Street so well that we could be ok. So we got tickets as far away from the stage as possible, just so they weren't as frightening. But thankfully, all the worrying was for nothing. He had a blast!

The premise of the show was that Super Grover had lost his "superness" and he needed help getting it back. So Elmo, and a few of the other Sesame Street gang, became super heroes themselves to try and figure out how to make Grover super again. In their quest they learned a lot about exercise, nutrition, sleep/energy, and hygiene--which ended up being the things they needed to make Super Grover "super" again. It was a great lesson for any 2-year-old and it was awesome to see how much he took out if it. When we left the arena, Brendan was jabbering most of the way home about how he had lost his "superness." And all the things he needed to do to get his "superness" back. He even remembered most of the things that had been discussed in the show. It was awesome!

Some of the other highlights:

1-NaNa and BawBaw bought Brendan his own light-up Elmo wand. This was great when the lights went off at the start of the show. As soon as it was unwrapped and handed to him he started waving it around and casting spells. The first spell out of his mouth...."Harry POTTER" (Yes, he is my child too).

2) During the intermission, Brendan really wanted to see Oscar. It was the one character that had not been presented yet. And apparently, his favorite of the day. So NaNa convinced him to use his magic wand to make Oscar come out. So he made up a new spell, "Harry OSCAR!" And he was shocked to see that his spell had worked. Oscar was the next character to walk on stage! The surprise on his face was the kind that only a trusting child can have. It was precious. (By the way, we did know that Oscar would be first to perform after the intermission. We weren't going to disappoint him, if we could help it).

3) Brendan tried cotton candy for the first time. He liked it for a bit, but it was a little too sweet to eat the whole thing. He kept wanting to feed it to Mommy. He thought it was funny when she'd put a huge puff in her mouth.

Waving "bye-bye" as we left our house to go to the show:

Brendan poses with Elmo:

In our seats, before the show. BawBaw, Brendan, and NaNa (This shot took about 15 tries. I finally had to put Brendan's puppy on my head to get him to look my direction. He couldn't take his eyes off the stage.)

At the stage before the show:

"Harry OSCAR" worked!!!!

Cotton Candy:

The Weather Outside is Frightful

We got our second real snow of this winter this past week and boy was it a doozie! We supposedly received 9-inches, which for St. Louis, is A LOT! Mandy had some work drama as she was supposed to work at 5 am that morning, with already about 7-8 inches on the ground from the overnight snow. She got up, made her way in to work, only to find that the truck was stuck somewhere on the highway. She, and another brave work associate, waited for almost 2 hours before getting the all-clear from the distribution center to go home: the truck would come the next morning instead. So...with work finished at 7 am, she headed home to her soon-to-be waking family. Brendan was all too excited about the snow, and after a rushed breakfast, we all went out to enjoy it. It was so deep! Brendan insisted on making a snowman, but this was not a good snowball packing snow. So to keep the disappointed tears from flowing, Mommy made our own little mini-snowman. We searched the yard for things that could serve as eyes, mouth, and ears. It turned out pretty cute, and as Brendan has never made a snowman before, he didn't really know there should be a much bigger version than that sitting in our yard :)



All bundled up:

Oops! Brendan fell down and got a face full of snow. He wasn't too happy, if you couldn't tell:

Our snowman:

This shows you the scale of our snowman:

Tasting the snow...this took a lot of coaxing after the face-full he had received earlier. He wasn't to keen to get his face that near the snow again: