Grandma Gwen's 90th Birthday!

A fee months ago, my Aunt Debbie came to me to tell me that a few weeks before that, Grandma Gwen had asked them to pick up her prescriptions for her, and in the process of doing so, found out her date of birth was 9-9-21, meaning that she was going to be 90 years old this year! For the past several years she's been telling us that she's turning 81, 82, 83, etc and we all thought she was going to be 84 this year, so we were shocked to find out she'd been lying to us! She's so silly!

On her birthday, she had to have a procedure done, so I took her to the doctor and then took her out to brunch. We went to Denny's which is right across the street from her house and is 'one of her favorite places to go' because - get this - there are always a lot of old people there. Really Grandma Gwen? :) She said it made her feel comfortable. *note* that all of these old people that she was pointing out were like 65 ish. A full QUARTER CENTURY younger than her. lol I guess when you become an adult those gap really do get smaller!

The next day we all met for lunch at Olive Garden to really celebrate (since her birthday was on a Friday and ppl work). We had a great time enjoying the whole family. Here's a pic of Uncle Mitch with sweet Abbi, and then one of Freddy helping Grandma Gwen out to her car. :) I'm so thankful for her and how sweet she is. I'm grateful that the Lord has provided for her all these years and is still doing so!

 

Happy Birthday Grandma Gwen! We love you!!!

Black Friday Antics!

Most people who are friends with me on Facebook know that we spent the week before Thanksgiving camping out at Best Buy to get some good deals. :) But many people have asked me about the details so, here they are!!!

My mother in law has gone to Best Buy 4 out of the 5 years that Mitch and I have been married on Thanksgiving morning, or the night before to 'camp out' for deals.  We always do Thanksgiving with them the Saturday before, so she's free for the day anyway and has gotten some really great deals. This year when the ad came out saying that they had a $200 42" tv, we talked about joining her, camping out Thanksgiving day again, but some crazy person decided to set up tents at the northside Best Buy on Sunday night, by Monday night everyone in the city was getting the idea. We went ahead and decided to wait until Tuesday and headed up there Tuesday morning. I borrowed a tent from my friends and picked up my brother in law (who was saving our spots for the majority of the time) and set him up at the Best Buy in Regency.

When we arrived there were several people in front of us, namely 5 tents. There was 3 small tents that were supposed to have 1 person each, then a tent with 2 guys, a tent with 4 people and then us, making us 12-14. (people wise). As the time went by, the numbers changed for all but one of those tents and by Wednesday there was some very frustrated people. The people in the first three tents hadn't been there at all Tuesday night, and had shown up in a camper in the parking lot Wednesday morning. They were claiming that they had 20 people buying and that was NOT going over well with the people who had been sleeping on the ground for 2 days while their tents sat empty. Not to mention we had no way of knowing if they had one person or 20 people in that camper to begin with. The basic rule had been that as long as you were putting in time there each day or had someone saving a spot for you, you were good and each person could basically save a spot for themself and one other person. So, by the time Wednesday night came around we had decided we would have 4 people buying instead of 3 because everyone else had changed their numbers anyway. So Wednesday night, Mitch's Mom, Mitch's brother and I all slept there, and I have to tell  you that it was a lot of fun! We talked to each other, played games, one guy brought a 40" flatscreen and an XBOX, so several people were playing games. By Wednesday night there were about 40 people in line.

Thursday morning, I stayed while Mitch's mom and brother went to get showers, and then I headed to my mom's for Thanksgiving brunch with my family. Mitch met me over there with the kids and we all went to brunch. After eating, Mitch rushed back to Best Buy so that no one could get mad that we didn't have everyone there. I planned to go to my sisters for a few hours but after Brax blowing out 2 outfits and getting a late start on brunch to begin with I didn't see how I could drive out there and make it back to Regency by 2, so I just took the kids with me over there for a few hours and after my mom got some rest, she came and got them around 4:30. Here are some pictures of them playing at Best Buy with Nay Nay and Aunt Jen!

By 4 pm. the line was wrapped around the side of the building. By 7 or so we all started taking down our tents and putting things away. At 10 pm we had to be ready for them to come out with the vouchers for the big items. (like the tvs) Around 9:30ish, people started lining up their chairs closer together so as to mark exactly who was in line and who was not. (ie kids or parents who were just there to help carry or pay) (there were 2 15 year old boys who had been there since Tuesday with one parent, so the other one's parent came around 9 since she was paying, but he was the only one in line).  By this time the parking lot was filling up and the line was around to the back. There were also several people who would just stand in front of the doors like they were going to get to bypass the line. Ha! When the manager asked us to line up single file, we all started putting our chairs against the wall and standing up, when this black women came and stood right between the people in front of us and the group in front of them. OF COURSE, that didn't fly and we were all pushing to get in front of her and telling her to move. She started yelling and pushing saying "I've been here. You can't skip me!" And we were all like "Um, no." The police officers came over and asked what was going on and we told them, and they told her to go to the end of the line. Actually, they said "Go to the end of the line, or get arrested". She left. :) They started coming out with vouchers at 10, and passed them out if you wanted that particular item, until they were out. Computers, tablets and cell phones, blue ray players and the like for 45 minutes or so. Finally they came out with the vouchers for the tvs that everyone had come for! We were expecting them to have about 40, but as they started passing them out, it became obvious that there were much fewer than 40. We were numbers 17, 18, 19 and 20, and we were the last people to get vouchers.

We felt really bad for the people behind us, but all of our tvs were spoken for. :( When the doors opened at midnight there was some pushing from people trying to get past the front people, and there were some guys in the line who just grabbed the other people by the collar and said "Don't get yourself hurt by being stupid, because I won't let you trample these people". I thought it was very interesting. We ran once we were inside and got the xboxs, leappads and ps3s that we wanted and then got in line with our vouchers. The lines were ridiculous and we were there until 3:30 or so. Mitch had to work at 7, so he got home, slept and hour and then left for work. Talk about a long day! We did get everything that we wanted though, so that was good. We sold a lot of the stuff we bought on craigslist and ended up making about $600. We kept a tv and a 10.1" tablet for ourselves and are definitely loving them!

It was a lot of work, and a lot of fun, we'll definitely be doing something for black friday next year too, but I doubt it will be that big! lol

It's been a MONTH!!!!

Holy Cow. It has been a month since I posted, and now I feel REALLY behind. Brax has a surgery next week, so I'll try to get myself occupied by posting while he's back there, instead of pacing. lol :) Updates coming soon!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

This year as we started getting into the holiday season, I started saying to myself "We'll do this at this time, and get that done the next weekend" and on and on as I planned out the holidays in my head. Unfortuately, we got to Thanksgiving week (and I usually put our tree up the Sunday before Thanksgiving) and realized there was no time set aside for putting our own tree up. So, in haste, while the kids were taking an unusually long nap on Tuesday, I went into the garage, and got the Christmas tree down out of the attic (yes, by myself) and put it up in the living room. Mitch got home as the kids got up and I had him come out and 'catch' the Christmas boxes as I pulled them out of the attic too. Then I had Mitch put the kids in their Christmas pjs, brought the 2 boxes in that had the ornaments and stockings in them and started decorating. :)

The kids got in the spirit right away, Brookelynne remembering from last year what she was supposed to do. She was showing Brax and within a few minutes, he was hanging ornaments too! I'm so thankful for my sweet kids who love learning new things, they melted my heart as they interacted with each other and us as we decorated. We pulled out ornaments that had significance and told them what they meant and sang Christmas carols as we decorated!

The kids had a great time and so did I. I can honestly say that our Christmas decorations this year consisted of what I accomplished that night, not even bringing in the other 3 boxes of decorations. Too bad! lol I'll do better next year! haha. Weren't they adorable!

Moments to Remember: She's Cracking Us Up!

Brookelynne has started not wanting to go to sleep in her bed once again, and as always, I am still making her do it. Each time we cycle back through this fight, I end up having to find a new way to get her to stay in her bed and go to sleep. The most recent thing keeping her from going to sleep is that she's pitching fits once I close the door behind me. So we went through several ideas of things to keep her in bed, including talking about it, time out and spankings for screaming at me, giving her extra toys to take to bed with her, and yet, nothing had worked.

Sooo, last night I had gone back into her room to put her back in bed, tucked her in, kissed her head and said "Sweet dreams, baby doll" (like I always do) and before I could make it to the door, she had sat up in her bed, screaming at the top of her lungs, kicking her feet and slamming her fists into her mattress. [in case you were unaware, that behavior is not acceptable lol]. So I immediately turned on my heels, going back to her fully intending on putting her in time out. As I reached for her and started to speak, I saw "Baby Doll" (her baby doll she was sleeping with) and remembered what my friend Angela had started doing with her daughter, which was putting the toys in time out instead of her daughter, and it had worked great.

Soooo, I grabbed Baby Doll instead of Brooke and said "You know not to act like that, and because you're pitching a fit, Baby Doll is going to time out and baby bottle is going too" (the baby's bottle) At which point she screamed "NOOOOOOOO" I stepped over to the time out place, which is on the other side of  a big piece of furniture and not visible from the bed and sat the doll up against the wall in the same place we sit Brooke for time out, with the bottle in her lap, and stood up to see the funniest. thing. ever. :)

Brookelynne slid off her bed and 'ran' over to where time out is (it was only a few steps) and looked around the 'corner' so that she could see Baby Doll and when she saw Baby Doll, she screamed "Noooooooooooooooo!!!", covered her eyes with both hands and turned her back to 'the sight of Baby Doll in a corner", crying. I literally had to turn away from her to stop from laughing but it was just so pricelessly dramatic!

She's such a mess! Don't worry, Baby Doll got to come out of time out a minute later and everyone went to bed shortly after.

On a side note, I thought I would keep using this technique as needed, but tonight when I tried to put Baby Doll in time out, Brookelynne got all excited and jumped out of bed to 'do it herself'. Saying "I'm Mama, I do". Not exactly what we were going for Brookelynne....

FBC Preschoolers Fall Festival

This year our church had a great fall festival planned for our preschoolers, complete with tons of crafts, different age based games, bounce houses and a hayride! When I saw the flyer, I knew I wanted to take the kids, but since it was on a Friday night, I didn't know if we would be able to make it once Mitch got off of work. The kids had both had ear infections for the week before, so it wasn't even sure we were going to attempt it Friday morning, but I told Mitch to hurry home anyway, and if the kids were acting well, we'd go. :) Sure enough they were great! Mitch was able to get off around 4:45 and we were on the road to church at 6.

They had coloring sheets and thank you trees set up at all the tables, and Brookelynne enjoyed those for several minutes. Once she was done coloring we moved to the texture bins in the back of the dining room. These were so fun for both of the kids since they  had multiple bins set up with different items hidden in beans or corn or sand. Here's a shot of Brookelynne fishing something out!

Braxton enjoyed these too, but we had to keep an eye on him, because [as usual] he wanted to eat everything! lol While we were there, Shelly got up and spoke about thankfulness and how God wants us to be thankful. They had a slide show as well as a 'table talk' packet for all the parents that was filled with different Biblical topics to discuss with your preschoolers at the dinner table as well as how to explain those topics in their language.

Once the presentation was over, we went into the 'Under 2' room to play. :) Braxton went straight to the ball pit, and loved it! He was picking up all the balls and kept rolling around in them. Daddy would pick up the sides and shake it a little so that it would move all the balls around and Brax would laugh, it was soo cute! Here's a shot of him and his friend Davis sitting together! Look at that grin on my boy!

Then we moved onto some of the other toys which included a tunnel. Brookelynne showed Braxton how to crawl through it, and he followed suit very well! :) Here's my little man coming through the tunnel, laughing as he comes!

As we got out of the tunnel, I picked up Brax and saw blood running out of his ear. I was definitely not happy. As I mentioned, both of the kids had had ear infections that week, and we had been 'cleaning ears' every night before bed, and by 'we', I mean 'me', but Brookelynne saw things differently. Right before we left the house, I heard Brax scream, ran into the room and found Brooke holding the little tool I use to clean their ears, and when I asked her what happened, she said "I clean Brax ears". At the time, I calmed Brax, looked in his ears and didn't see anything, so we came to church like planned. At this point, after seeing the blood, I decided to call the doctors office. While waiting for a call back, we migrated to the craft tables, and Brookelynne took advantage of many of these. Here she is making a turkey. She had to place the tissue paper and then press it down :) She had so much fun making it and the teachers assigned to the tables were very impressed with her!

Braxton and Brookelynne both did hand prints and Daddy helped them so much!  We put them on the fridge and LOVE them! After the hand prints were done, we moved to the next room and Brooke did more crafts in the older room.

When the doctor called back, they said that we should probably go to the ER just to be safe, so we rounded up the kids and hit a few more 'attractions' before heading across the bridge. Brookelynne did the blow up slide outside (even though she didn't want to at first) and once she had done it once, she didn't want to get off! She slid at least 10 times after that!

And of course, we got a family photo at the wagon! :) We had a great time and were so thankful that our church planned something so sweet for their youngest members! Can't wait for next year!

And for those of you who are dying to know what happened with Brax's ear, we went to the ER where they put us in a 'fast track room' and a doctor came and checked his ear out. He had to clean out the blood several times (like 5 or 6 cue tips worth) and still couldn't see well, but was sure that Brooke had not punctured the ear drum, but had scraped the side of the ear wall and caused it to bleed. This was later confirmed by his pediatrician when we went back for the ear infection follow up. (Which hadn't cleared up, so we're onto another antibiotic. See if this works)



A trip to the Zoo.....

Mitch has been on vacation this week, so we've been trying to get a lot done. Unfortunately, we really haven't. lol. But since we weren't getting stuff done around the house, I figured we should get out of the house all together! So we took a trip to the zoo! We love going to the zoo with Brookelynne because she loves it so much and now Brax is getting to the age where he is starting to notice the animals, so it's becoming even MORE fun! This was the first time we've gone as a family of four!

We had a great time and started by heading toward the back instead of taking the African loop, and before we even got 15 yrd down, we saw a very active leopard pacing in his habitat. :) We got both kids out of the stroller and were so glad that he kept pacing. Braxton saw it and watched it very intently! Then we stopped at the giraffes, because we wanted the kids to feed them. It's one of our favorite exhibits, especially when its not crowded (which it wasn't), so we got to go up to the giraffes all by ourselves, and not worry about people pushing or rushing us. :) Brookelynne and Braxton both got to feed the giraffes and Daddy helped them do it! Of course, we stopped by the giant metal elephants for a picture, and then headed toward the Jaguars.

We stopped to see the flamingos, one of Brooke's other favorites, and Brookelynne reminded us how they stand! :) It was so cute! And then we headed to the bird sanctuary there. We went in and saw several birds bathing at the entrance, as well as some very active HUGE turtles in the water. Then we walked over to the otter window and were delighted to find two otters playing and swimming. They played and swam for 15 minutes while B&B watched them and chased them back and forth. Mitch took about 100 pictures of this, but I'll just give you a few :).

On our way out of the exhibit, we let the babes stand on a bench and look at the group of ducks sitting together. They really liked that! Then we checked on the jaguars (which weren't there, as usual) and headed into the "Lost Temple" exhibit. We saw snakes and frogs, as well as a lizard eating. Then we saw some very active bats, and 2 very funny armadillos! They were chasing each other around in circles and Brooke thought they were very funny! Then the kids got to stand and watch the anteater pace in front of them. Brax really liked that!

Then we headed on back to the Austrailian loop, because I really Mitch to see the exhibit where you can feed the birds and they land on you. Because, well, that's just awesome. lol. We didn't buy any nectar this time because the last few times I've been in there, the birds were full, and I've come to the conclusion that if you arrive after about 9:45, then there's no point because the school kids have all fed them. Anyway, we walked in and I was happy to see only 3 other people in the exhibit. And there were several birds, right by the door at eye level or lower for B&B. I got one to step onto my finger, but Brooke was not going to get close to it! lol. Brax liked it, but I'm not sure he was even aware that it was an animal and not a toy! We walked around with Brooke pointing out the birds and then she saw another lady feeding a bird, and she was VERY interested in that. A minute later, as the lady was about to leave, she asked if we'd like the rest of her bird food, to try and feed one. We happily accepted! While still holding Brax I went around until I found a bird I thought would like some food, and sure enough he did! So I showed Brookelynne how to hold the cup, and then let her feed the bird! It was soooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooOOOOOOooo SWEET! :)

After a minute or so, I got the bird on my hand so that we could move away from the corner we were sitting in. Once we sat down, Brax was bound and determined to get that bird. And then he saw another cup. One that only had a little bit of nectar in it, and started reaching. I was really hoping that he wanted to feed the bird too and had decided to do it, but alas, he only wanted to eat it. (Which I didn't allow him to do, of course!) But he was sure cute trying!

When we left the Australian bird sanctuary, we went to see the penguins. Once again, we found some very active animals. There were 20 or so penguins swimming right in front of the glass. Brooke got Daddy to pick her up to look down at them, but Brax enjoyed just looking up at them from the ground!

Before heading home, we stopped at the petting zoo. Something I RARELY do, lol. Anyway, I took Brax in and kept him from falling in the gross stuff and touching anything dirty, and we let Brooke pet/brush/see the goats. :) Here are some pics of that too!

I'm loving the days we have to go to the zoo as a family and am very thankful that my sweet husband took pictures most of the day, so I'm actually in them! lol :) Hope you enjoyed seeing the zoo through our eyes!