Happy Birthday Landon

My baby turned 2!  I guess he's not really a baby anymore, but we'll just pretend he still is.  He celebrated his big day by going to church and doing puzzles in nursery.  Then he took a nap in prepartion for his party that night! 

He and his cousin Ellie are only a few days apart, so they celebrated together.  And yes, Ellie is only 5 days younger, even though she looks 5 months younger.  If you listen to her talk though, you would think she was five years old!  Landon's vocabulary mostly consists of bah-be (baby), mommy, doggie, and a few others.  He's the strong silent type!

He loves balls, cars, books, and pushing the doll stroller around.  He loves following his big sister around, and copying his big brother.

He loves to make car noises.

He loves his daddy and always runs and shouts when he comes home. 

He loves candles and blowing them out.  He learned on his birthday that candles are hot and his momma is a little slow.  He loves the app on my phone that has a little candle he can blow out. 

And he really, really loves his mom!

and cake!

and a little look back to his newborn days

 
Aside from playing with toys, he also loves to scare people.  He says "boo!" in a cute little voice and will keep saying it until he gets the reaction he wants.  He loves to read his "doggie" book before naps.  He is still a good sleeper and sleeps with his gorilla and blankie and sucks on his two fingers. 

He likes most food and thinks he is a big boy, especially when he cleans up (a trait that probably won't last much longer) his toys, dirty diapers and shoes.   

He does not like his brother and sister getting in his space and lets them know loudly and quickly.  He does not like when mom doesn't understand what he is saying, when dogs come up to him, or
 when his mom won't let him type on the computer. 

Landon is our little sweetheart.  He is full of love and loves sharing hugs and kisses.  I especially treasure our little bedtime routine that we have.  He will snuggle up on my shoulder while I sing him "goodnight sweetheart."  He doesn't mind that I only know the chorus.  Sometimes he'll sit up and give me a kiss and then lay back down on my shoulder.  Othertimes he'll pat my back while I pat his.   This little routine we have is sometimes the only one on one time that I have with him, and it makes it difficult to actually lay him down to sleep.  I could cuddle that kid forever if my arms could handle it. 

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

Thanksgiving at the Bramwell's: 2010

Ingredients:

kid table

big kid table

 babies

 drinks (mormon style)

 movie

 mash potatoe mountain

 silliness

 family 

not pictured:

card games

more food

white elephant exchange

nap

Snowy Adventures

As you can tell on the old school date stamp on these pictures, we were able to celebrate the first real snow the end of November.  (I guess I need to check my camera's settings)  We bundled up the kids and watched them from inside.  Yeah, I'm  nice like that.  Brooklyn enjoyed stomping around on phase one of the play structure we are building. 

 Landon was so excited.  He kept saying "Snow," which if you know how little he speaks, was really impressive. 

When his big brother and sister went to play in the front yard, he just stood there for probably 5 minutes until I made Billy go get him.  Yeah, I'm nice like that.  I'm not sure what he was doing, if he was enjoying the snow, too bundled up to move, or just chillin'. 

 Of course, we had to finish off with hot cocoa!

Vegas Baby!

Billy had to attend a conference in Vegas for a few days.  Of course, I didn't want a good room to go to waste while he was in classes, so I decided to come along.  It was awesome.  I had 8 uninterrupted hours- yes, I kept track.  As a mom, I don't get a lot of time to do what I want to do.  Which is okay.  I love doing stuff with my kids.  However, every once in a while, it is nice to just have quiet.  Or listen to the soothing drone of the television on a channel other than cartoons.   The first full day we were there, I read, napped, watched tv, ate lunch in my room, played on my laptop, read blogs, scrapbooked... all those things I never get to do often enough.  The second day was my shopping day.  At first I got frustrated.  Everything I liked, I couldn't really afford or I didn't really like that much.  But, I did score an awesome ring made out of a coke glass.  Yes, I love me some Coke Zero.  I also got some cute shoes and some little things for the kids. 

The second best part was getting to hang out with Billy- uninterrupted (except for the darn conference).  We watched football in the hotel.  Well, he did, and I caught up on facebook and my google reader.  We also met up with a coworker one night for dinner, walked the strip, hung out with an old mission/college buddy and his cute family, shopped, ate, and went to Cirque Du Soleil's KA.  KA was really amazing.  If you ever have the chance, go see it. 

Of course, thank you to my family/friends for helping out with my kids so I could go! 

And now you know, what happens in Vegas when Megan goes,

doesn't really stay in Vegas.

and I am also realizing I don't have any picture of the two of us.  They are all on my phone!  Oh, well!

Book of Mormon Stories

It seems like most nights when we sit down for scripture study as a family, someone can't find their scriptures or they can't agree on who's is who's. So for family home evening, I bought 5 of the paperback Book of Mormons, and we personalized them with our own paper. The kids know these ones are to stay on the shelf. Study time has gone much more smoothly - except for the keeping ones hands to oneself while others are reading (Brooklyn). Maybe I should wrap her up too! jk. We try to keep it short, one verse (or 2 if they want), since they are still little. I also like it because it leaves us time to talk about the meanings of the verses. I've been so impressed with Brayden and his interpretations and questions. And while we don't have a perfect track record reading each night, I have seen the blessings when we do.

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St. Luke's Women's Fitness Celebration 2010

Another year, another race.  I love doing the St. Luke's 5k every year.  Even though I am really out of shape, I signed up for the timed run.  I wouldn't have been able to do it witout my sister and friend running beside me, and even kind of pushing me up the hill :)  Hopefully I'll get my behind in gear and be able to get a good time next year.

Lexie, Charise, Teresa, Me

Landon's First Haircut

 When my hairstylist sister Desiree' came into town, I decided it was probably time to cut Landon's hair for the first time.  Even though he is almost 2, I just couldn't bring myself to cut those little curls he had behind his ears.  Sometimes he just had "old man hair" hanging over his ears, but sometimes they would curl up- it was just too cute!  He also had a spot right on top that would curl.    At first he was pretty upset with the whole haircutting idea, but with the bribe of a bottle and me holding onto him and Grandma making silly faces, he decided it wasn't so bad. 
   Now that it is cut, he looks so grown up and so much more little boy than baby.  So sad to have him growing out of the baby stage, but I love how much he is learning and growing and doing. 

Brooklyn's Preschool

Brooklyn started preschool the beginning of September.  She is taking from my dear amazing friend, Michelle.  Someday, I will be amazing like her, but until then, I will send my daughter to her and pray that some of that "amazing" rubs off on us.  Brooklyn was especially excited because two of her best friends are in her class.  She got to pick out a "back to school" outfit.  We both loved it because it had pink and sparkleys on it. 

Normally, I would have fancied up her hair for the first day of school, but I was running late (as usual).  I also would have normally taken about a trillion pictures to capture this sweet girl's cuteness, but I dropped and broke my nice camera, and my little camera was M.I.A., so we had to settle for my phone's camera, which isn't that great. 

Isn't she a total doll?  I love this kid. 

And here she is with her wonderful teacher!  She is having a great time.  Surprisingly, Michelle (Mrs. B) said that she is really quiet in class.  But, she is having a really fun time and is enjoying all the cute crafts they have been doing.  She knows all her letters but two, and loves to write her name.  After her first day of school, she got in the car and told me "nocturnal" and then proceeded to tell me what it means.  After that, she kept saying, "what was that word I was supposed to tell you?" 

Rock Stars

A couple weeks ago, one of my BFF and her hubby came through Boise on their way back home.  Marcie and Lael are always so much fun, and it is just like old times when we see them.   We got a sitter for the kids and then headed downtown for the Boise Music Festival.  Unfortunately we were too late for the Backstreet Boys, but we did get to see Bret Michaels.  I didn't think I knew who he was, but I actually recognized some of the songs.  Lael managed to worm us nearly up to the front, and Marcie and I were able to pose like true groupies.   

and to stop the rumors before they start- I totally look preggers in this picture, but I'm not- I promise...must be the stripes....

BOISE! STATE!

We didn't get season tickets this year to Boise State's Football games, so we had to get our fix of blue turf when we had the chance.  We took the kids down for their scrimmage.  I hadn't been for a few years, and I couldn't believe how crowded it was.  I remember when we sat down on the lower level and there were tons of seats available.  This year, we had to climb, climb, climb to the top corner just to find a spot.  It was a lot of fun- although I never know when I should cheer during a scrimmage.  Is it good when YOUR offense scores on YOUR defense?  Landon loved clapping and cheering along with the other fans.  Then a huge windstorm came through Boise and we barely made it home alive.  Well, it wasn't quite that bad, but it was really windy!

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

I know this is horrible, but these pictures make me laugh. hard.  Brayden got a mosquito bite on his forehead and it got really swollen.  It spread across his forhead and over his eye so much that he really didn't even look like himself.  Everytime I would look at him, he would just look so pathetic, but in a really funny sort of way.  Yes, I know, I'm kind of mean that way, but I googled it and read that it was normal since there isn't a lot of tissue there, and some bites can have more of a reaction.  Poor kid.

Ice Cold Lemonade

A few weeks ago, Brayden had a smart idea on how to earn a little extra cash -one that did not include doing extra chores for his mother.  Lemonade. Luckily for him, the neighbor kids all pitched in and all the parents kindly bought some lemonade.  They had a lot of fun flagging down cars, riding scooters around, and of course drinking most of the lemonade.  Of course, when you have to split your earnings a few ways, it might just be easier to do chores for your mom!

Dancing Princess

 Brooklyn has started dancing classes.  She is so cute in her little leotard and I made her a ballet skirt out of leftover fabric from her Aunt Lexie's dance costume.   She loves to come home and show me all the new tricks that she has learned.  I hope she takes after her Aunt Lexie and not me when it comes to dancing skills! Can't wait to attend her little recital in a few months.  And yeah, I'm maybe a little more excited about it than she is. 

Floating Shelves by Handy Billy



Our $1 Floating Shelves!



Billy found a plan online on building floating shelves so Brayden would have a place to display all his Lego creations and his Star Wars ships.  We started by going to the ReStore (a place that sells donated building supplies -new and used- and picked up a set of folding closet doors for $1.  Painted them black with paint we already had. 

 Billy made some braces and drilled them into the wall.  His were even better than the plan's.  We cut the doors down and they slid right onto the brackets- well almost, we may have had to do a little sanding on the brace.... It would just be wrong if our projects worked out perfectly the first time ha ha!

 

Now we just need to fill them with all those cool "boy" things Brayden has waiting to show off!