Beauty in the desert

 went on a picture session in our yard to see if I could capture some of the beauty of the landscaping we have here. It may be a desert but the xerascape is very beautiful...

From crib to toddler bed....the baby to toddler transition milestone.

We can no longer call Brenden a baby I suppose. Babies sleep in cribs after all. Once the crib is gone then it's time to hang up the term baby. I seriously never thought this day would come. It seems the first year, you think that your life will always be about bottles and diapers. The second year you realize they can feed themselves and they switch to sippy cups that you can gratefully refill all day long and throw into the dishwasher at the end of the day (my hands thank the wonderful sippy cup as they were turning to mush having to hand wash 6-8 bottles a day). Now into the third year, we have already begun potty training and now converting the bed to a toddler bed. We weren't ready to go all the way and do the conversion to a full sized bed, although I am sure that will come all too soon as well. I am not sure why I am so hung up on this milestone. I guess it just signals to me that The Cute is now a walking talking little man who know gets up in the morning and runs and jumps into our bed to play (at the nice hour of 5:30 a.m. sometimes). He is really great about staying in bed throughout the night, in fact he hasn't 'escaped' once. Let's keep our fingers crossed that continues as the house is hot enough to need to have his door open. Stay tuned for more stories on the toddler transition that is happening at lightning speed!

The Cute turns 2... (how is that even possible)?

....I mean really it has been TWO years? I know parents always say "where did the time go?" when it comes to their children but I always thought they were exaggerating quite a bit. Turns out they aren't. It really does seem like two days ago he was born and yesterday was his first birthday. I am in awe that in two years time, someone who was a helpless baby has now developed into a little kid complete with his own wild personality! Now that is off of my chest, I can report we had a small party which consisted of myself, Dave, my Mom and Dad. It had been a year since Brenden had tried birthday cake and I am here to report that he had the same reaction to it that he had last year which was that it was messy (he hates messiness) and it was cold because I tried and ice cream cake. I think he had two bites of it and was through with it. So I will still be the Mom that everyone looks at funny because my kid doesn't eat cake and ice cream.
After the presents and cake, we all got into our swimming pool for the first time and it was great. I think it will get much use now that we are headed into 100 degree temps.