The Birthday Festivities

On February 22nd, Brayden, turned 1. I can't believe that my baby isn't a baby anymore. Friday night we had a party for him with Greg's family and friends. It was a little hectic (we had eight kids under the age of four), but so much fun.

The cake didn't go so well, but we didn't have high expectations. Brayden does not like textures. At this point, he is eating no table foods and putting nothing in his mouth (food, toys or otherwise...not even a cheerio). I have even been trying to blend his food and he still won't eat it...frustrating! Anyway, so he didn't like the cake. I tried to get him to at least try the frosting, nope. He mostly looked at it in disgust. Don't let the picture confuse you, he didn't eat anything, the mess is just from me trying to get him eat the frosting. He did look pretty cute in his new little outfit Aunt Denise sent. She made him a shirt that said "one" on it. Pictures are getting more difficult now that he is walking. Every picture that I have from the party (when he is not confined to a chair) is him walking to get the camera. BIG NEWS...Brayden is walking and it is so cute. We call it the frankenstein walk because he keeps his arms out and sways back and forth. Hilarious!

On Saturday we had my family over for a party. My family is pretty big with all of my step-brothers and their families, so we usually have to split up parties. There are twenty of us if we all show up:) Also a wonderful night of non-cake-eating...and yes, I put him through the torture again. But at least someone enjoyed my cake (cough, cough - messy boy to the right). It was such a fun party and we were once again blessed with new clothes...he is going to be once spiffy dresser! All of my nephews and nieces could come, so we took a picture of everyone. In the back is Luke. Front left: Brayden, JoEllen, Hope, Jarrett, Jacob and Jonathan.

Tumbling class...to not moving at all

This winter I entered Jett into a tumbling class and it has been so much fun. The lady running it is so nice and so creative on teaching the kids balance and skills while working them into learning. Jett has such a great time and it's a wonderful bonding time for us. This last week I had to take Brayden because I couldn't find a sitter...interesting:) But we did get a cute picture.

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It warmed up a bit on Valentines day, so I had Greg take the boys out to play. It was hilarious getting the boys dressed. Brayden's snow suit was a 9 month outfit...yeah, he's in 18 month clothes now...I'm sure you can see the humor unfolding. After a lot of pulling and tugging we got it almost zipped up:) He couldn't even stand up by himself or sit. He was able to roll from his back to stomach, but then flopped like a fish out of water trying to get back over. Greg took them for a very uncomfortable sled ride with Bray crying and Jett yelling, "I'm falling." Brayden tried to play, but it's kinda hard when you can't move, so he came in pretty quick. Jett was in toddler heaven. He is such an outside boy. He is the happiest when outside. Greg was so romantic. When he was outside playing he took a shovel and wrote "I love you" in the snow. Sigh

In sickness and in health

On February 7th, we celebrated 5 wonderful years together. It has been quite a rollercoaster, but well worth the exciting ride. I say in sickness, not meaning metal (but lately I could lean that way), but because we were both sick over the festivities. The day of, we had a horrible night with Brayden and we were both tired, feeling run down and moody and then had to take Bray to the doctor. So we decided to celebrate on Saturday and take the day off together. I woke up in the morning feeling yucky, but by-golly I was going out with my man. Greg's step-mom, Susie came for the midmorning and afternoon and then in the afternoon to evening they went to some friends of my family's house. It was the best gift we could have been given...a whole day together. We went to Mishawaka and went to lunch, watched a movie (in the middle of the day), walked around the mall, had dinner and then went to pick up the boys. It was a nice break for everyone. Our running joke now is that Greg's 5 year lease is up on me...will he trade me in or keep me:)

Time to catch up

Yes, we are alive. We have had a couple of crazy weeks and honestly if I had any free time, I was lookin' at the back of my eyelids:) So I will begin our little catch up with Brayden. He turned 11 months and finally started moving (which is probably why life is more crazy and I am more tired). I wanted to caption this picture, "Who is watching the kid". Man is he fast! He is crawling, he can stand up and get back down and he is scaling the walls. We think he sould be walking soon. He and Jett are playing so well together, now that he can follow Jett where ever he goes. They will even go into one of their rooms and play together for a somewhat long period of time. It's kinda nice...minus the random screams of pain being inflicted. Their new favorite playtime is playing in Jett's shark tent. It's so fun to hear them laughing together. Brayden is still having some sleeping problems/screaming problems at night. We are desperate to find an answer and are hoping that there is light at the end of this very long and dark tunnel.








My sister came up to IWU for the weekend, so Lee, Becca, Greg, myself and the boys went down to see her for a dinner. It was quite the hectic meal, but with kids, when is it not:) After dinner we went to McDonalds to hear Jett scream in fear of the slides:) Needless to say, we didn't stay there long. Then we went to the school and hung out in the game room for awhile. It was fun to watch the boys play and for Jett to get all excited because he was with Aunt Megan. I didn't have much of a chance to talk with Megan because Jett demanded all of her time, but it was nice to just be in the same room!





My mom turned the big 53 this year and still looks like she is in her 40's. I hope I get that gene:) We had a little Birthday party for her. We had my parents and Lee and Becca over for dinner. Jett worked all afternoon making her Birthday signs to hang all over the house. His favorite part was putting the candles on the cake and helping her blow them out. Happy Birthday, Mom...you look great:)!!!!!!!!

We had a huge LOST party last week when it premiered. We, meaning my cousin Alyssa and I...earlier that day Greg found out he had to overnight somewhere, what a bummer). We had a bunch of friends over for the evening. We gave out invitations that went with the theme. We decorated with putting airplanes crashing into plants, setting out Dharma labeled food and I put a wing from one of Greg's planes on the front porch. We had a mystery dinner with all code words from LOST. We played a game about your trivia of LOST and the winner recieved Dharma peanut butter. Then we all sat down in excitement over the new episode. It was so fun watching it together and especially the part where we all screamed at the scary part. Our wonderful guests included Alyssa, Tim and Emily, Nick, Randy and Casey, and Darin and Darcy.