Partyin' and stuffin'!

Why is it every year I feel like this time of year comes on faster than my gray hairs that these days are quickly coming about with the crazy tot :). Well this big DOS birthday was alot better for ME this year :). I chose to spend money to let other people make the projects that had me running around like a crazy person last year trying to get everything done myself and having a mental breakdown in the midst of it all :). But this post isn't about MWA, it's about the fireball of a 2 year old that we have runnin' the roost at the Connell residence (and anywhere else we are that he is with us :)).

This year we chose to have one big birthday party instead of two so off to the bouncey house place we went. It rocked, like ALOT! We had a young lady that was assigned to our party room that set up everything we dropped off and then was there to do anything we needed plus some. I gave threw those reins at her like nobody's business and was actually able to visit with everyone and soak it all in.

This year we did an Elmo theme with a little "Sesame Street" inspired touches. He did wonderfully and no fits were to be had.. I will start on the pics. and do some commentary on those :).

These were the gift bags I made with a sesame street coloring book and crayons for the older kids and a sesame street book and teether for the babies that would prefer to eat the crayons :)

I ordered this sign for him to now use in his room.. I tried to glue it tighter and uh you can see I destroyed the sign, grrrrrrrr. 

 This was the cake set up at the bouncy place! I made the cake which was supposed to be totally different, and Elmo turned out to be a little on the "pink" side :). Oh well, momma is trying to pick her battles, let's just say that I chose to let the fondant cake I had in my head and the battle with the fondant that I had go.

 Playing with Micayla!

 My nephew Jackson, Brad focused on the stairs in the back instead with the camera lol.

 Sweet Brynnan, I swear I could just eat her sweet self up!

 

 Another sign I ordered for him, I took the easy way out this year and didn't feel the need to be super mom and make everything myself like last year, and let's just say- I LOVED IT!

 Little angel Addison getting some adoration from Gigi, Uncle Jason, and Aunt Ashley!

 My sweet Sydney and Taryn!

 What a lucky boy he is!! So many just love him so much!

 My long time best friends Heather and Brooke xoxo.

 Carson, aka, Rico Suave :)

 Supah sta' Addison!

 COOOOOOOOOP!

 Gigi, what is all this!

 Oh no, I remember this now.. everyone stares at me and waits for me to do somethin' funny.. :)

Here's somethin' for all of ya, I remember now also how much I LOVED this sugary goodness!

Little Jackson!

Tryin' to steal a kiss from his future baby momma :)!

Why you gotta be so difficult girl!! Look at her little eye lol!! We are going to have to teach him that sometimes he has to wait for the ladies lol.

Suckin' up to his future mother in law :)

Since we only had 2 hours at Big Bounce we took the gifts home, which totally bugged me that we didn't open in front of those that were so kind and generous.. I was told and do agree that the kids just wanna play anyways for those 2 hours, no use in tyin' up an hour with trying to keep a 2 year old interested in opening gifts :).

This picture cracks me up, I caught him right in the middle of a couple of sneezes!! :) he's really not crying I promise :)

OH DEAR, generous friends then brings about generous amounts of stuff to clean up :) 

He wrote this to thank his Gigi and Pappy for the gift they gave him.. So amazing he is :)

Really mom, this is the ghetto candle you give me on my real birthday, hee hee.. mom fail number one million and 7...

Thanksgiving was simple and sweet and deeeeelicious! It was a small group this year compared to the reunion size dinner last year! We started the morning off with mom and dad coming over to watch the Macy's day parade. That was a good and heartwarming time that I hope we can turn into a tradition with any that want to come! You know my psycho self and my yearning for traditions :). For dinner we went to mom and dad's and enjoyed a scrumptious meal, just the 5 of us. We had delicious desserts, as you will see below :).

AHHHHHHHH, he does this when he wants some of what you have, it's quite hilarious.

Poor sweet baby hit the metal part of the bed frame and had me thinking I was going to have to run him to the ER.. it swelled so fast, so scary!

Good ol' booger pic., those are quite frequent with himself. I am going to have to work on him and teach him a better nervous twitch, right now that is it lol.

 We ended Turkey day with some family Mexican train which had us enjoying many giggles and a great time with mom, Jason, Ashley and myself. Brad and Brady went home to crash, Brad and Dad are mexican train fans about -1% so he let me stay and still enjoy myself :).

Well, it's on to some Christmas time posts!!

730 days

730 days ago we met you.. 730 days ago we fell in love and loved you like we never knew we could love someone. Thank you for the past 730 days of the our lives, the lives that became what they were meant to be because of you. You have taught us that there is so much more to life then the lives we were living prior to you coming into them. You are the best part of the both of us, and I would like to think that you bring out the best in both of us as well. You are our little angel from above even if you have little hidden horns that try to come up from time to time :). There are so many things that I could go on and on about that I have learned that I would have never imagined would be something I would know. I. LOVE. IT.

You are constantly on the move, there is no time for walking, there is way too much to take in that requires being on the go at your most top speed at all times. You are a total boy, TOTALLY! Although I am only your momma, I can imagine (or hope) that a little girl would not tease me by sticking both fingers in your nose when I ask you to remove the one :). Since about 15 months old you have been teaching us just what we are in for with the “terrible twos”. You are not “terrible” by any means, but oh my goodness, you like to show us just how strong we are and just how much endurance we can have when going through one of your “challenges” :). Time outs are something you know well and most of the time it is for the lovely spitting and “doing it just one more time” when asked not to :). You are still so dang cute that I am such a LARGE pushover, it’s ridiculous! Oh well.. we have a lot of fun with you! You love when we lay down for a rest on the floor, you quickly remind us that while your eyes are open there is no resting and to wrestling around we go. You love that darn dog, and as cute as a kiddo can be you loooove to call any dog you hear barking a- BAAAASSSEEEETTTT. I am thinking about buying the two of you a BFF necklace from each other for Christmas and putting his on his collar. If you hear him getting in trouble you are quick to push out that bottom lip and fully express yourself that you are not happy with your friend getting yelled at. Recently he has started doing the same.. if we tell you in a stern voice to go to time out after you have “driven off of the beaten path”, he will start barking at us as well. It should be fun in the years to come if that keeps up :).

You are doing great with your identifying body parts, and I think that you saying BOOOOTIIIEEEEEE, is the cutest darn thing EVER! You were getting a little confused with eyes and ears, that whole “eh” sound gotcha all messed up :). But I think you have it now as you try to gouge my eyes out and poke and say EYES? EYES? EYES? Yes, yes son those are my eyes, NOW STOP IT! :). I wish we knew exactly what they are teaching you in school, or what songs they are singing because you do things and we are like WHERE IN THE HECK DID HE GET THAT FROM? It’s actually really neat! We saw mouth and you make this sound like you are eating something, and you then put the tips of your fingers to your mouth like you are putting something in your mouth!

You think the ITSY BITSY SPIDER is the best thing since sliced bread. You wiggle your little bootie really quickly with excitement when I sing it! To get me to sing it you take your little fingers and put them together like the “itsy bitsy” action that you do when you sing the song and say EEEE BEEE BEEE??? :) You have also taken to your dad singing ROW ROW ROW YOUR BOAT all crazy and fast like Elmo and Snuffie do on one of the DVD’s you like to watch. You do your arms really fast (in the song they sing the song faster and faster) and say ROW ROW ROW!!! So sweet and funny! It’s crazy with you knowing what you want and not quite knowing how to ask for everything just yet with the different words but you know how to get your point across! Usually juice is requested with a really loud.. JJJJJUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! You like doing things for us, and it almost sounds like you say, I’LL DO THAT. One thing that you do that for big time is when we have your diaper all wrapped up after changing you, you will reach up for the diaper and say IDUDAT :), and run to throw it away. Speaking of diaper changes, I think you may have a future in the WWF! You have the quickest wiggliest little spider legs when we are trying to change you!!

You love the outside, like SUPER LOOOVE! I am pretty sure if we let you sleep out there you would think it was paradise! I love that about you! You have some surprises coming at Christmas from Santa and Pappy & Gigi that really have me excited for outside time! I am glad that you actually prefer to be outside and playing then sitting in front of the tube! You are not into any types of the “popular” movies (Cars, etc.) but Sesame Street and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse will stop you in your tracks or send you running into the room that they are in if you hear it!! You love it and have started singing the “Hot Dog” song that is on the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show, it is soooo stinking cute! You still love Elmo, that is about the only DVD that we can play in the car that you care for. The other day you started singing along with some of the songs on the DVD! Your dad and I just looked at each other like HOLY COW! You have a great memory it seems, and thank the good Lord, mine is horrible so I am glad that for learning purposes you didn’t take after me!!

If we count to ten one number at a time with you, you actually count ahead of us and can do all the way to ten! You do a really good job still trying to imitate us when we say each letter in the alphabet! It is amazing to me how much you have already seemed to really pick up in just a couple of months in school! You started loving to do “ring a round the rosey” and are too cute when doing it as you look out of the corner of your eyes the whole time!! HAHAHA! Rarely do you get through the whole song though, you will start singing it to yourself and spinning slowly, then when we chime in you start going faster and it usually starts and ends quickly as you love the “all fall down part” of course :). Generally it goes like this.. RING A ROUND, ALL FALL DOWN!! You love that and giggle so sweetly when you fall down.

I am so glad you are here, I am glad that you are ours. I am glad to be greeted by your sweet smiley face that makes any bad day wonderful. I am glad to know the feel of the sweet kisses you give right on the smackers. I am glad to hear the “love you’s” that get more clear as time goes by. I am glad that we have the most beautiful little boy growing and changing so quickly and that we get to experience those changes EVERY.DAY. I love hearing you quietly beckon us in the morning, NO MATTER HOW EARLY ;). I love the way we can pick you up when you first wake up and you tuck those sweet little arms under you and snuggle into us with your head on our shoulder. I love how you will reach for our hands when it is time to go nestle in for the night and read some books before bed. I love the sweet smile and this so soft and sweet cheeeeeeeeese sound you make when I go to grab you a glass of milk at bed time. PS. YOU LOOOOOOVE YOUR MILK :). I love watching you enjoy moving items from one container to another over and over and just wondering what you are thinking. Do I see a future in architecture like Uncle Jeremy in your future ;)? I love how you will sing with us at bath time. I love how you have learned from us playing bubble beards with you that you can put them in your hand and raise your hand to us to give us a beard by yourself :). I love how much you love basset, and even better, how well he treats you because he loves you too. The last 730 (actually 740 days now because I am so late with this post :)) have been the best days in my life. It is absolutely amazing to me how someone that you never knew was missing from your life can come into your life and you don’t know how you ever lived without them. You are everything to us, you are our lives, you are what we live for. You make us want to get the most out of every day, to teach you things, to have so much fun and play. Thank you for bringing this “life” back into your parents. Keep adding your love and kind spirit to this world and the lives of people that you come across. They will appreciate you more than you will ever know. Keep loving deeply, as we love you. We love you to the moon and back my sweet baby boy. Thank you for being our son.

BEANIES & BEACHES!

Did we forget something?

With the tune- ON THE ROAD AGAIN- running through my head, the three of us loaded up and hit the road to have a little mini vacation at the beach for a few days. Momma decided that she would try to get kiddo to pass out most of the trip as normally sleep is not something that he does in his “younger” years on road trips. Instead of using a dash of Benadryl as I have “heard” to be a great trip assistant for good naps haha, I used an all natural remedy of STUFF BLANKETS UNDER THE CARSEAT COVER TO MAKE IT SOFT AS HELL! Well, laugh as you may, it worked.. and it worked GOOOOOOOOOD! Youngster lasted about 20 minutes, which included a good ol’ stop at Mickey D’s and consumption of some fat free nuggets before he was out and showing off these fantastic eyelashes!

Could you not die! Do you know how many strokes of a mascara wand I have to use to try to look like I have “something” coming from my eyelids? Heavens! That nap of his lasted about ¾ of the trip and then we had to stop for gas that I dreaded stopping for because I knew if the motor stops, the sleeping stops :). Oh well… we went as far as we could on fumes, and he was a rockstar once he was up.

Good ol’ Port A… we were a little more aware of our surroundings then last time..

Last year- haha... i could eat those sweet baby sausages :).

You know me and my picture comparisons, how crazy is it how much he feels out that carseat height wise!! LAWDY, LAWDY!!

A little confused on just what was going on with the rocking of Betsy (expedition, yes I love to name the vehicles I have :)) and what the heck were we doing in the middle of a gargantuous bathtub!

But then all was well and off we went to hunt for our condo and hope it was as nice as we read online, ya never know! It was great! The inside was beautiful, the outside.. not so much as it is an older property but we loved the space as it was a 2 bedroom. We will always do a 2 bedroom from now on! That rocked, A LOT! We had flat screens in the bedrooms and everything! Can you tell this poor redneck was impressed :). Here are some pics..

This is the living area that had a dining room as well that was large and had a 8 person dining table in it! ( I am standing in it to take the pic.)

Our bedroom had a separate entrance to the back patio that you can see in this picture! I am telling you, it was awesomely large :)!

This was on our bedroom door :)

I think that we were backwards in our room, I am pretty sure that B is captain of this family ship and we are merely his crew haha..

The kiddo's bed that he slept in in the picture below is magical, or maybe the kiddo is as magnificent as we know he is and slept in 2 of the 3 mornings of the vacay. When I say slept in I mean slept super late, as in, I woke up because it was light outside already and it took me a second to realize the miracle that was in the works as I looked at the clock and saw that it was 7:30!!! I have not slept that late since uh I don't remember when but I know that it as been atleast since he started sleeping in his big boy bed. 6:30 is now considering sleeping in in our household.. yawwwwnnnn..

We had to do a taste test :)…

Our Condo overlooked the two pools and tennis courts, in the background in this pic.

We had a huge wrap patio that overlooked the 2 level pool area! Bub of course fell in love with the ROOOOOCKIEEEE, ROOOOOCKIEEEE :).. chairs!

Once we had everything unpacked we headed down the condo boardwalk to check out the beach and just do a little site seeing on the property to see what trouble we could get in to for the next couple of days…

The beach condition I am going to go out on a limb and say that it was the most beautiful that I have ever seen it. The water was not nasty gulfy brown, but a tealish blueish color.. the beach was clear of seaweed or anything from a red tide that I heard was there earlier in the week.

Such a change from this picture, 2010- ohhh i could just eat him up while looking back at these sweet baby pics!

It was just beautiful, and Brady wanted to immediately do his best Baywatch David Hasselhoff run down the beach once he got out of the stroller. I went floppin’ after him but I am going to say that I doubt anyone looked at me and thought, is that Pam? How did “they” get that far down “there”??? HAHAHAHA! We did a lot of runnin’, but we also got just a tad more smart on the 2^nd day and stopped the stroller further back lol.. he didn’t seem as interested as he was the day before to run straaaaight for the water :).

Pull Pops Pull!

Friday was very windy and man that wind had a chill to it! I know it’s November and you just don’t know what the weather will be like in Texas at that time, but I did get a kick out of the fact that we had a beanie on Bub while he was playing at the BEACH haha! He seemed to have a great time playing with the sand, and he thought the fact that you could hold out the bubble wand and not have to even blow because of the wind was the best thing since PB & J.

All of that out there is yours baby boy!

This is my beautiful life.. my love. (and this could possibly be my new super fav. pic. of him.. along with the gazillion others, i need a bigger house for a bigger family pic. wall :))

Look momma, we ain't even gotta blow on the stick :). It really looks like he is taking a self photo of us, hahaha!

FREEEEEEEE!

Next, let's go play on the stairs :).

Messin' around with my camera.. turned out kinda neat..

After frolicking around on the beach, we headed to the playground for a bit that was onsite at the condo. He is just growing so fast, he doesn’t even need me following him on the jungle gyms like a stalker anymore :(. I can just hear him prior to me having this realization with that fact- sorry guys, watch out, here comes my mom and dad… haha. Poor little guy.. 

We had this sweet baby all to ourselves!!

I think that grin tells the whole world how much he loooooves to slide!

This is another one of my new faves!!

Weeeeeee! Let me down I wanna go again!!

Another super fav.! I need a bigger desk while i am shopping for a bigger house.

Saturday we grabbed some breakfast and then went to a huge park that we had found the day before at the city park near the ferry boats. We stayed there for a couple of hours, their playground is ideal for B's age! There are a few gaps that you could slide down poles or climb up somethin' or other that we had to watch him around so he didn't fall but he never even went for them and just had a blast crawling around the jungle gym and slidin' down all the different slides! He was so sweet, this little fella would be so scared to do something and Brady would smile at him and "tot talk" and his little friend would go on down the slide behind Brady, no more fear :).

Pretty sure that he was saying, GOOOOOO, right here..LIKE I ALREADY SHOWED YOU HOW TO DO IT, TAKE THE PLUNGE! BIG MEANIE :).

The boys had a great time when the great bossy attitude was over and done with :). It was only that one time as I would die if I had a mean bossy kid that was rude to others!! I hate it when kids act like that! Brady is just a sweetheart 96.7% of the time and says Hi in his best Texas accent to ANYONE that comes across his path :). This includes the herd of cops that were leaving a cafe we had breakfast in.. and if you don't say hi to him.. no worries, he will SCREAM it at you until you acknowledge him hahaha! Love that little guy. I don't understand how someone doesn't say hi back to a little kid.. but he makes them regret it :). And I will let him yell at them :).. SAY HI TO MY FREAKING KID RIGHT NOW, HE ONLY GETS LOUDER!! hahaha!

Here are some more pics. of B and his new buddy having a good ol' time..

Come on buddy, you can do it!!

He was a loving little fella :).. I think B was saying, ok, ok, no need to thank me like this :).

OK, if you arent going to go can I squeeze on by?

Love that smile!

Not sure about those flyin' things...

Come on buddy!

Looking in the wata!

PUUUUUHLEASE hold momma's hand so we can have a cute picture!

If you can't tell, he was not willingly going down the stairs with me haha..

Another great momma/ son picture haha.. it did start getting entertaining to me at this point.

Watching the ferry boats..

That chain link fence let momma and daddy take a breather from "the chase" :)

Dolphin!

Sweet baby boy!! (OHHHH yaaaay, another cute daddy/ son pic. :), no I am not bitter, leave me alone ;))

OHHHHH here is my good one! NOT! hahaha ;).

And then the trip was complete, and we walked on homeward!

Saturday evening we noticed that we were coughing while we were hanging out on the patio. It felt like your nostrils and throat were on fire and so itchy! We could hear others at the condos coughing as well, it was the strangest thing. All 3 of us were coughing and once Brady started it totally creeped me out! We went in napped, he took a FOUR HOUR NAP!! I wanted to go to the beach before dinner but the "cough" was still there so I figured maybe it was sand or salt or something in the air so we shouldn't go "closer" then we already were. We had a great dinner, didn't even have to leave before we were all done because a certain "someone" was over sitting in one spot like we had to do the previous 2 nights :). I even had a sweet love note written to me.. 

What! You mean I can write on the tables!! A tot's paradise!

Daddy/ Bub's hands

To his defense, on Thursday night we were having dinner and an elderly gentleman sat down and his back to Brady who was having a "shrieking" good time... i saw that poor guy flinch the first shriek that Brady let out with happiness.. and I saw he had a hearing aid in so I told Brad that we should go. We were almost done so it wasn't too big of a deal, I felt so bad.

Sunday morning we got up and the "cough" and burning nostrils were worse then ever! It was like that scary movie where the trees blow and something in the air kills people.. that is what I felt like, it was all cloudy and gloomy. Our condo owner was nice enough to tell us that we had no check out time because noone was coming the day after or anything (nice thing about going in November haha) but I literally got scared of whatever was going on (maybe it was the fact that it was the "unknown") that I got us all packed up and we were in the car by 10:30 (of course please keep in mind that we were up at 5:30 with the time change and our last day of vacation B chose not to sleep in haha.. killin' me son.) and home by 2:30. A friend of mine said that it was the "red tide" still hanging out.. I haven't had a chance to google what in the heck it was, but it was creepy.

It was a ton of fun though just hanging out with my boys and not having to worry about what next chore I should do like I do on the weekends at my own house if I have a free second. I didn't have to a darn thing, and I loved it. It also really revived me personally and mentally too. I close this post with the song in my head I FEEEEEEEL GOOD! i FEEEEEL NICE, SUGAR AND SPICE!! :)

LAWDY, LAWDY, ONLY 46 SLEEPS TIL THE BIG FELLA COMES!! YAHOOOOO!!