B-I-N-G...Oh, MAN!!!!!

It's always humorous to me (okay, maybe in theory, but I'm never laughing about it) how I can always manage to get *this* close to things and then... nada. I would say I never win anything, but I've had a few lucky streaks lately. I am addicted to Scrapgirls.com - it's my digital scrapbooking haven. I don't post a whole lot, nor do I chat, but I read a lot of stuff, and I LOVE to browse the gallery and post my own pages. Anyway... they play lots of games on the site - games where they give away good prizes (aka FREE STUFF). Of course anyone who knows ANYTHING about me knows how competitive I am. I can't stand to lose. Proabably its because anything I chose to participate in, I feel that I can win - I kind of cheat that way - I don't try to do things like play Halo 3 on XBox because I would for definitely sure lose BIG time. Golf is another one of those things (John's convinced I should just give it a try, but I know myself, I know I don't have the patience to be good, so I'll just be content saying, "I can't play" rather than, "I really stink."). ANYWAY (again), it's BINGO time on the SG web boards. You pick 25 words out of 75 - they call 5 words a day, first to 15 wins. I'm at 12. And the girl calling the words has obviously gone into hiding. She's nowhere to be found. She's boycotting, I guess. :D Just kidding... But seriously - I've been stalking the boards since 8:30 this morning just WAITING for her to call those last 3 words I need so I can win and get it over with!!!

I'll keep you posted.

...4 hours later:
I WON!!!!! Okay, I'm officially a dork, I'm so excited.

OU, Toddlers and Teenagers

Tyler has learned to say, "OU!" He has been able to make both sounds individually, but tonight we taught him to put them together - with enthusiasm. :D Oh yes, we brainwash our boys with Sooner Spirit. But after all, football season approacheth and what kind of parents would we be if we did not train up our children in the way they should go??? I mean, really, if I'm going to be the mom of two Heisman winners, I've got to start them young.

Oh.... I also need to share about my teenage toddler. You might be saying, HUH?? But I will explain. Brayden has hit this stage where everything he does is an unbeliveably good impression of a brooding teenager. He slams doors, he rolls his eyes and says, "Mmmaaaaaahhhhhhmmmmmm!" he goes to bed late and then sleeps in, he gets huffy when he doesn't get his way, and he doesn't want anything to do with anything anyone wants him to have anything to do with (yeah, try to say that 5 times fast). BUT... he and Tyler have learned to hug each other. I need to get the camera out for this because it really is too sweet not to share with the entire world (or those few who actually read my blog, I guess). So it's not all bad. In fact, it's not even mostly bad. And if I'm going to be honest, I can't say it's bad at all or then I'd have to shame myself because Brayden really is just a mini version of me. I mean, where do you think he learned to say, "You hear me?!?!" and "Come here NOW!" :D Thank goodness Tyler is like Daddy.

As Promised...

Okay, here's the zoo page... I still can't believe that Brayden got to pet a kangaroo!!!!!

Hum...

I really wanted to just type some stuff in my blog without having to have a scrapbook page to add. So... I was thinking about what happened today... And it brought to mind, my cousin, Shawna called today. She was telling me about my aunt's 60th birthday party that's coming up. She also reminded me (as if I needed reminding) that I've got a "big one" coming up too (I'll be 30!). And our conversation kind of just went on until she brought up a topic that we had discussed way back in October... She has some good friends who lost a daughter to cancer in November and was wanting some advice from someone who'd been through a similar situation to weigh in on how to best deal with the siblings. It's weird to have to drudge up all those feelings from 15+ years ago. She asked me an odd question, though - if I had felt some resentment toward Troy & my parents during the entire thing - if I felt like I was being, not really neglected, but getting the short end of the stick when it came to my parents. I didn't even have to hesitate when saying, "Yes. Without a doubt, yes." It took me until college to actually start dealing with some of those issues and to this day, I still harbor some of the emotions that I felt during my eighth grade year after Troy died. But I realized something today as I was talking to Shawna. That if I KNEW that one of my two boys was going to die within the next year, I wouldn't hesitate to spend as much time with them as possible. I would take them everywhere with me, I would sleep with them, I would cuddle them every waking moment - I'd smother them.

But then I thought about something else....

We are not promised tomorrow. They aren't promised tomorrow. So why am I not taking advantage of every moment with them now? What if I didn't have tomorrow with them? Or worse, what if I DO, but I don't take advantage of it and 18 years go by and I've never truely taken advantage of them. As crazy as they drive me sometimes, and as much as I just want some "me" time or that extra 30 minutes of sleep... I need to make sure that I don't miss the time I have with my kids.

Camping Out

So Rhonda, Nikolas and Andrea came to visit this weekend. Brayden & Nikolas had a TON of fun playing (or WRESTLING) together. Saturday night, I decided they could sleep together, so I got out Brayden's Cars tent and sleeping bag. I don't know how much sleeping went on actually, but they had a great time.



We also went to the Little River Zoo, but I haven't had time to scrap that yet, so you'll just have to wait.

I Love Thee...

I found a really neat quote today while working on scrapbook pages... I wanted to use it to do a page for John, but I couldn't find any good, recent pictures of him by himself. Somehow I'm always complaining that there aren't any pictures of me, and have consequently given my camera to people lately to make sure I'm in some pics, but now I realize I don't have too many of John either. So - note to self - take more pictures of the hubby. Anyway... I gave up on the idea of doing a page of John when I found a picture of John & Brayden from Thanksgiving 2006. I just jumped in from there. This is what I wound up with:



But let me tell you WHY I really wanted to do a page about how much I love my wonderful husband... It's because he loves me. :D He's taken the last few days to make my life a little easier, which has been an immense relief to me. He's cleaned and more importantly, decluttered my kitchen, he's done the dishes for the last 3 meals, and he vacuumed the entire house. And he's done all of this with a broken finger!! I think some of it was cabin fever, but it was still ultimately to help me out. He's a great husband and helper for me. I love my John.

Words and more words...

I realized today that I am a very bad mom when it comes to the boys' baby books. There are PAGES and PAGES of nothing in there. So I thought that I need to try to write some stuff here just so I'll have it SOMEWHERE. You know??? John and I were laughing this morning about some of Brayden's sentences. Our current favorite is:

"Let Brayden help you."

Mostly in reference to using scissors or the phone or something else he knows he shouldn't be 'helping' with.

Tyler's words to date:
No
Da-Dee
Mom-ma
Gam-ma
Pa-Pa
Thain-ku
joose
din (drink)
done
ball
baf (bath)
go (more like where'd it go?)
yeah
ummmm!
oooe (shoe)
eeee (eat)

And yesterday, he tried to sing along with the Little Einsteins theme - I even think he said something like 'Einsteins.' Imagine that!!!

I think there are more, but I can't think of them right now, so I'll come back and edit if I remember them.

That's all - I just wanted to get that all written down.

Mommy's a Guitar Hero & Brayden Wipes Out

John & I had some vacation money left, so we went out and got Aerosmith's Guitar Hero... We could've used it for something more responsible, but it was VACATION money - and this game is something that's allowed us to extend the feeling of vacation into our every day lives. Besides, it's too much fun!! Of course I only play on "easy" because I don't want to get frustrated... (In other words, I'm basically a cheater, cause I *could* play medium, I'd just stink at it. Know your limits, I say.) I had a really good game one day and I pulled a John and took a screen shot with our camera (he does that when he has really good Halo games - I always thought he was a cheeseball). And to further the insanity, I'm scrapping it.



One more thing... Tonight John decided that he was going to watch a really (REALLY) stupid show called "Wipe Out." I'd kind of boycotted myself from watching it because it seriously looked that dumb and I didn't want to give the powers that be the satelite feeding letting them know that someone was watching - thus encouraging them to make more stupid television. But I digress - John was watching it and was really getting a kick out of it. Must be a guy thing because Brayden joined right in. After about 5 minutes of watching these dumb Wipe Out stunts, he starts turning everying in the living room into an obstacle course (including, but not limited to, John's legs). He was jumping from couch to coffee table and then rolling off onto the floor... he was creeping to the edge of the cushions and then springing onto John's legs... John realized that the show was obviously a bad influence on a very daring child, so he turned it off. And Brayden yelled, "No Daddy! Why-Out!" He's going to be a daredevil, I'm just sure of it.

Thank you!

I've been meaning to come on here and post this for a while now... Tyler is talking in sentences!! Well, if you count "Thank you." It sounds more like gich-eeew most of the time, but sometimes it comes out very clear. He's also learned how to jump, he runs when you say "ready, set, GO!" and he's sleeping through the night (most of the time - finally!).

We cut his hair the other day... It was getting kind of out of hand. But I still didn't really want to do it. His curls were just too cute. Not to mention that I absolutely LOVED running my hands through his hair. Now that it's all gone, he just doesn't really look like my little baby anymore. But seeing as how everyone thought he was my baby girl (even in blue), I guess I needed to do it for him.

Brayden has been showing us lately just how stubborn he is... He is fighting sleeping by himself. He goes down for the evening around 8:30 or 9 and doesn't give up the crying until around 12 and even then, it's only for about 20 minute increments. The other night, he cried off and on until close to 3 am. And then he woke up around 5 and started in again. It's not fun at all. We've tried everything - drinks, paci, stuffed animals, flash lights, lying with him for a few minutes, singing, the "just put them back in bed" technique, ignoring, stern voices, and even a swift pat on the rear... but he just WILL NOT give up. Every time you leave the room, he's at the door within seconds. I actually think it's kind of facinating that he has that kind of "stick-to-it-iveness." But it makes for VERY long nights for Mommy & Daddy.

I think I'll come back later and add a few posts above this one to include vacation stuff since I'm not really in the mood to sit here and recount it all right now (I'm super tired). If anyone has any tips on getting a very willful toddler to bed, be my guest to share. :D

Here're a few scrapbook pages to get you through until next time:






This one is actually a picture from quite some time ago, but since I was talking about Brayden and his onerery-ness...

Two words at once!!

Tyler said a two word sentence this week!!! On Saturday he said, "Water Pa Pa!" And then last night he said, "Ni-ni Da-dee" He's growing up so quickly!! Brayden is gone to Grandma & Pa Pa's this week, so Tyler and I have been alone together. Although with camp going on, it's not like we've had a lot of free time. Pretty much if we're alone, it's because it's nap time. But it's nice to be able to focus solely on him and his needs for a few days. Here's my latest Tyler scrap... it's a picture from a few months ago, but I just got it done and fell in love with the outcome.



Speaking of speaking in sentences... Brayden has just taken off with talking. I called this morning to check on him and he got on the phone and talked my ear off for about 10 minutes. It was a lot of gibberish, but that's the longest he's ever stayed on the phone in conversation. He told me about the thunder ("I her it! Dun-der! I her it!") and got excited about something and blabbered on incoherently about whatever it was for quite a while! We miss having him around. I noticed when we were at my mom's that he's now taller than the bar... when we were there for Erin's graduation in May, he could still walk under it. So obviously he's had a major growth spurt in the last month. Here's what else Brayden's been up to:



Well, I just heard the washer stop, so I need to go put the clothes in the dryer. I wish I had more time to write some stuff, I'd like to talk about camp, about some stresses I've been feeling, about frustrations with some people... but I promised myself that when the laundry was done, I would go to bed so I could be on top of my game tomorrow. I was a little short tempered today... and I really don't want to be that person again tomorrow.