Christmas letter 2012

We started out 2012 getting settled into our new home.  We love all the space we have and the kids love the undeveloped basement, especially in the wintertime.  Brandon spent all summer working on the landscaping and we are looking forward to being able to finish it up next summer.

Brandon is enjoying working in Taber and Candice and the kids enjoy having him home for lunch everyday.  Luke and Bryson look forward to when he gets home every night and either race to see him when he walks in the door, or race to their hiding spots so he can try to find them.

We were able take a little bit more vacation this year and enjoyed a Caribbean cruise in February with Brandon’s family.  It was so much fun to spend time with each of his siblings, their spouses and his parents without kids!  We also spent a week in Montana at McGreggor Lake and another week at Lake Shushwap.  And to keep us busy at home we spent lot of time going on bike rides and swimming in Grandpa Porter’s pond.

The most exciting news of 2012 was the addition of our sweet little Tyler Joseph Gibb.  During my last trimester we found out that he had a cardiomyopathy, which is, in a few words, a defective heart muscle.  We had weekly ultrasounds from that point on to make sure he was doing all right.  He did well and was delivered on August 30^th in the Calgary Foothills hospital.    There were seven extra doctors on hand in the delivery room to make sure he was okay!  Tyler did really well and was only in the NICU for one week.  Every time we met with the cardiologists from that point on his heart showed improvements.  On November 30^th, exactly 3 months from when he was born, the doctors could no longer find anything wrong!  His heart has reached normal function and we are so grateful for our little miracle.  There was a lot of prayer, fasting and tears shed throughout the experience and we are grateful for the opportunity to have our testimonies and faith strengthened.  He is a very smiley little boy and we love him to pieces.

Luke has grown up a lot in the last year and can’t wait to start pre-school after Christmas.  He is a little reading machine and often reads Bryson a bedtime story if Mommy is busy taking care of Tyler.  Luke learned to ride a bike without training wheels this summer and has turned into a little fish.  He loves to swim either at the pool or in Grandpa’s pond.  He also made his Daddy really proud when he waterskied for the first time at Shuswap!  Luke loves to play with his cousins and has a special place in his heart for his grandparents. 

Bryson is changing quickly as well.  He is now in big boy underwear and doesn’t even need pull-ups at night.  He loves to wrestle and will rough-house with anyone that wants to and sometimes those who don’t (Luke).  He loves his little strider bike and had no trouble keeping up on our bike rides all summer.   He even helped us break in our new house by stuffing rocks from the yard into our central vacuum outlet in the wall!  Bryson loves to do anything his older brother is doing and we love hearing the two of them play together.  He is also Daddy’s little helper with whatever Saturday project Brandon is working on.

Candice is enjoying being a mother of three wonderful boys.  It has been a little bit stressful looking after Tyler and keeping on top of is medications, but he is worth every minute of lost sleep.   She was asked to be in charge of the Barnwell Days road/bike race in July and had a good time figuring out how to coordinate her first race!  She wasn’t able to run in it since she was 7 months pregnant, but it was still nice to be involved.   She also enjoys tutoring math students a few nights a week.

We are so grateful for all the blessing of 2012 and are looking forward to all 2013 has to offer.  We know that no matter what comes our way that we can trust in the Lord.  We have had and overwhelming amount of love and support from our family and friends in the last year and we feel so blessed to have each one of them in our 

Halloween

We had a really fun halloween this year.  It was out first halloween in our house and also the first time we've ever had trick-or-treaters!  The kids loved answering the door and passing out candy. 

 I'm pretty sure most kids get really excited to dress up in a costume on halloween, but I have to FORCE mine to wear theirs.  When I asked Luke this year what he wanted to be, he said a football player.  Um - YES please!  So easy to put together.  He put it on right when it was time to trick-or-treat and took it off the minute he was finished.  In fact, Brandon dropped Luke off after a few houses and then he and Bryson kept going for another 1/2 hour.   After each house he would look up at Brandon and say, "One more house Daddy.  One more trick-treat".

 Bryson dressed up as Woody this year, which is the costume I made for Luke two years ago.  When your Mom had a c-section eight weeks before halloween, you have to recycle costumes.  The whole week leading up to halloween Bryson would lay in bed at night saying, "reach for the sky" over and over again.

And little Tyler didn't really dress up this year.  We did put him in this little teddy bear snowsuit and he stayed nice and toasty.  It was a fun halloween, and we even threw a little halloween party for all the cousins, which of coarse I didn't take a SINGLE picture of.  Brandon and I are still enjoying the candy our kids collected.  They have long since forgotten about it and it's just sitting in the cupboard waiting to be eaten.

My not quite a pre-schooler

So, Luke is now old enough to be in preschool, but when we found out about Tyler's heart, we weren't sure how long we were going to be in Calgary after he was born.  So, I never signed Luke up for pre-school.  We've been home for a couple months now, but I've just been enjoying having everybody home.  And let's be honest - it's nice not bundling everybody up two days a week to drive him to school.  He is ready for it though!  He is such a good little reader and he's even started writing his own stories and books lately.  

We make some thanksgiving tree crafts a few weeks ago.  We made some hand cut-outs and he wrote down things he was thankful for on them.  They then became the leaves on the tree.  The things he came up with to be grateful for were so cute.  I told him to write down the things that make him happy, they are:  Ice, Tyler, Whipped Cream, Ice cream, Cousins, Dad,  Mom, Computer, Finding Things, Paper and Books.
The other day I went to Relief Society activity and left Luke and Bryson home with Brandon.   Here is the conversation between Luke and Brandon.

Brandon: "Looks like it's just us boys tonight, let's have a party!  What kind of party should we have?"
Luke: "A really fun party!"
B: "What do you do at a really fun party?"
L: "At a really fun party you do really fun things.  Like... MATH!"

Oh yes, he is my son.

Luke a reading machine lately.  I'm still baffled everytime I hear him read.  He has no problem sounding out words.  The other night I went to check on him before I went to bed and I found this.  A book, a flashlight, and a very tired little boy. We've since had to hide the flashlights so he will go to sleep at night.  (He is currently reading this as I type it)

The other day he brought me this paper and said, "Look Mom, it's the recipe for a hamburger."  It reads: Bread, Ground Meat, Lettuce, Tomato and Cheese.

I LOVE the way kids sound out words.  The english language would be so easy if we just spelt things how they sound!

All grown up

It seems like Bryson has grown up a few years in the last few months.  He has such a fun personality and says the CUTEST things.  He has his typical two year old tantrums and times where I feel like I must be failing as a mother to have a child act like that.  But for the most part, he's pretty fun to have around.

 We took his soother away two days after we brought Tyler home from the hospital.  It's crazy how they aren't babies anymore once you have a newborn.  I remember coming him, seeing him standing there and thinking, "What in the world are you doing with a soother in your mouth?"  So, we cut it, set it on the table for him to find, and spent a few sleepless nights and it was gone.  After that I guess he decided it was time to grow up because a few days later he started potty training.  So, within to weeks of bringing Tyler home he went from diapers and soothers to underwear and pull-ups.  In fact, he's even done with the pull-ups at night.  Which is SO nice to only worry about one size of diapers!

 With the big snowfall last week we decided it was time to take down the trampoline.  Bryson is not one to miss out on any project his Daddy is working on, so he got bundled up to go out and help.  Also, as you can see from this picture, he is still in his phase of not wanting his picture taken under any circumstances.

Baby Blessing

I have a TON of things I've been meaning to post about and just can't seem to find the time.  I don't really understand it because I am home ALL day.  My goal this week is to get caught up on documenting the last few months of our lives.  We have been LOVING having Tyler in our home.  He is such a wonderful little baby.  I remember a few years ago when Bryson was a baby I wrote a post about how I'm not one of those Mom's who loves the baby stage.  At the time, I wasn't.  But something has changed this time around!  I can't get enough of this little 10 lbs bundle.  It's not as hard as it used to be to get up with him at night.  Either he's a good baby, or I'm getting better at this, because I am thoroughly enjoying my newborn.  

About a month ago we had little Tyler's baby blessing.  We were lucky to have lots of family come for it, and I got to use my house to it's full potential for the first time.  There were almost 30 people there and everyone fit!  Love my house.  Anyway, of course, since this is our third child, we took almost no pictures of the event.  These are a few Brandon got before we headed to church.  Please ignore how tired and old I look.  I felt tired and old.

Love the little tuxedo.

A quick update on Tyler's heart.  We have had two checkups since we brought him home and things look really good.  The right side of his heart is now functioning normally, and the left side is "very close to normal"!  He is now on one medication instead of two which was nice since he was having quite a bit of tummy issues before we took him off.  He still pretty gassy, but nothing close to what is was when he was on the other medication.  We are still hopeful that the left side will continue to improve and his entire heart will be functioning in normal ranges.  We are so blessed to have such a healthy little boy!  Every appointment we are still terrified that things could get worse, but I think that over time, if things remain stable we will be able to stop worrying so much.  There is something about having the possibility of your child losing his health that makes all the lost sleep worth it.

Tyler Joseph Gibb

We are home!  And SO happy to be home.  Little Tyler joined out family at 10:15 am on Thursday August 30th.  After seven days in the NICU he was released and has been doing well since.  Isn't he PERFECT?

 Luke and Bryson came a few times to see their new brother in the baskbibol (hospital).  This is the first time they actually thought washing their hands was fun.  I guess we need to get one of these huge sinks and a motion sensitive water faucet at our house.  Bryson was soaking wet every time by the time his two minutes were up.

 Can't believe I'm outnumbered 4-to-1 around here.  I'm pretty excited about it though.  I am LOVING my family of boys.  Wouldn't have it any other way.

So, a bit about Tyler.  We were quite nervous when it came time deliver him.  There were 7 doctors on hand waiting for him to come, ready for anything.  We were told that he would likely need a lot of help the first little while, particularily with a respirator.  This little champ didn't need any of it.  From the minute we heard his first little cry (pretty emotional moment for me) he has been doing everything on his own.  His blood pressure was a bit low for the first few hours, but once it came up, it didn't drop again.  They did an echo on his heart within a few hours of him being born and already his heart had shown significant improvement from his prenatal echo's!  We couldn't have been happier.  They doctors told us that within the first couple days of life there is a high level of pressure on the heart and that after 3-4 days it would decrease.  The hope was that his function would improve even more in that time.
On his 5th day in the NICU they did another echo and saw some improvements, but not quite as much as the cardiologist was hoping for.  So, they started him on some medication and made us stay for 2 more days to make sure he was reacting well to it.  He did, and Thursday afternoon, exactly one week from his birthdate, we were on our way home.
We are SO grateful that Tyler has done as well as he has.  We feel so blessed that he is so strong and his heart is working as well as it is.  If it weren't for ultrasounds, we would have no idea there was anything wrong with him.  By all outward signs he appears to be perfectly happy and healthy.  In our last conversation with the cardiologist she referred to his condition as "mildly reduced function", a HUGE improvement from what is was prenatally.
We have another echo in 3 weeks to see if the medications have helped his condition even further.  Of course, there is always the chance that it has gotten worse, which is still scary for us.  However, we continue to pray that his heart will continue to improve and get stronger.  Mostly, we feel blessed beyond our ability to show gratitude for.

Delivery Date

We have a c-section scheduled for next thursday, August 30th at 9:00am.   I'm looking forward to meeting our little guy and not being pregnant anymore, but we are very nervous and anxious.  We are trying to really enjoy our last weekend together and take life really slowly.  Only 5 more days!

This little boy

This little boy has been growing up so much lately!  He is no longer a baby and definitely a full blown toddler.  He says the cutest things all day long and I just can't get enough of him.  The following story deals with potty training, so reader discretion is advised.

This morning he told me he was poopy, but when I went to change him, he hadn't gone yet.  I think he might have been saying "I'm pooping".

Anyway, I ran him to his big boy potty and he had his first BM on the potty!  After he was finished he stood up and looked at what he had done.  He pointed and said, "My cookie, my cookie!"

Don't worry, we flushed it down the toilet before he was able to test his theory.

Update

Thought I would write a quite note on how the baby is doing.  First of all, we decided to find out what we are having and it's a BOY!  We are thrilled to have another little boy in our family.  I think when you already have two boys people assume you are dying to have a girl, but I've never really felt that way.  I think that having a sick baby makes you so grateful just have them that gender seems so insignificant.

Anyway, we have been having weekly ultrasounds to watch the babies progress and make sure it doesn't develop hydrops (fluid around the heart).  So far, each one has been good.  The baby is still growing and no fluid has been found.  So, although we have been praying for his heart to improve before delivery, we are just grateful it hasn't gotten worse.  If he doesn't develop hydrops before birth, then we can continue to be optimistic.  If he does, then things can get really scary.

We have a c-section schedules for Sept. 4 which is just 3 weeks away!  Hopefully he remains stable until that time.  We've had a lot of people fasting and praying for us and we appreciate all of the support we've felt.  We know the Lord is aware of us and our little boy.

Blindsided

It's taken me a while to gather my thoughts enough to post about this.   It's been a difficult couple of weeks with a lot of highs and lows and it's hard to put into words how I feel.  It seems to change every couple of minutes.

Two weeks ago I went to my routine doctors appointment and he decided to book me an ultrasound.  There wasn't anything he was concerned about, just that due to him taking vacations and us taking vacations, I wasn't going to be able to get in to see him for another month.  So, just to make sure the baby was doing well, we decided on an ultrasound to make up for all the missed appointments.  I went to the appointment and when the technician said he needed to go talk to the radiologist, I knew something was going on.  By the time I got home there was a message on my phone telling me I needed to come see my OB right away.

As I was driving to my doctors appointment the next morning I remember thinking about the word "blindsided" for some reason.  I was looking back through my life at the time I felt I had truly been blindsided.  I'm not talking about moments where you go, "oh, I didn't expect that".  But times where something hits you completely off guard and alters the course of your life forever.  I thought of when my brothers got cancer as well as losing my brother Donald so suddenly.  I wondered if this was going to be one of those moments.  I wasn't too worried, but perhaps is was the spirit trying to prepare me for what was about to come.

Long story short - the doctor told me there were some problems with the heart.  It was too big.  Okay.  What does that mean?  We were scheduled for a fetal echocardiogram two days later in Calgary.  We soon found out that our baby has a condition call dilated cardiomyopathy.  When the doctor gave us the diagnosis we had no idea what it was.  Cardiomyopathy?  Okay.  How do we fix it?

It wasn't until we got home and sought out knowledge from our good friend google that we realized what we were really dealing with.  A non-curable heart muscle disease.

We don't really know what this means for our baby and for our future.  It's kind of a "we have to wait and see" situation.  We do know that it is not good and that a lot of babies don't survive this disorder.  Many don't even make it to delivery.   We will be having the baby in Calgary, but do not know how long we'll be there.  What we do know is the baby is doing well right now and we are hoping that I will be able to carry it to full term, I'm currently at 34 weeks.  Right now we are having weekly ultrasounds to monitor the baby and it's health.  If it starts to show signs of heart failure it will be delivered immediately.  At this point, there are no signs of failure so we are praying it stays that way.

We are worried and scared of what we don't know.  But we are faithful and trust in the Lord that things will work out as they are supposed to.  Mostly, we are praying for a miracle.

Shuswap 2012

We had so much fun at the cabin this year!  Luke cried when it was time to leave.  Through his tears he kept saying, "I don't want to go home.  I just love the cabin so much."  We almost didn't make it out there because if the flooding and mudslides that were going on the weekend we went out.  But we waded through the knee deep water and made it safely.  We were pretty much the only ones on the entire lake and it was quite peaceful without all the boat traffic.  Brandon was even able to ski in the middle of the day the water was so calm.  The first 4 days were kind of overcast and rainy, but it cleared up about half way through our trip and it was hot and sunny from then on.   All the flooding made for some cold water, but we still got in a few times.  Here are some of the pictures we took throughout the week.  

 Here's a picture of the boys on July 1st.  I was sad I didn't bring a Canada shirt for Luke, but at least he was wearing a red one.

Here I am at 31 weeks.  I haven't posted a pregnancy picture yet because I don't like taking them, but here is proof that we are having a baby soon.
The highlight of the trip is that Luke waterskied!  It was so cute and I was a little shocked that he did it. The pictures are on my brother-in-laws camera, and I don't have them yet, but we did get it on camera.  I'll post the video soon.  Luke was pretty excited that he did it and as I was helping him swim back to the dock he kept saying, "I knew I could do that."  He wasn't excited enough to do it again though.  I think it scared him more than anything else.  We are headed down to Montana in a few weeks to another cabin with the Porter's, so we'll see if he'll do it again.

Don't report us, but...

I meant to share this story on my last post and forgot.  Since we don't have grass in our yard yet and it has been raining constantly, Luke and Bryson get into the mud about 3 times a day.  If I take my eyes off them for two seconds they are out the door and filthy before I even know what's happened.
So, on Sunday morning Luke woke up at 6:30 and Brandon went downstairs to turn on a show for him so we could keep sleeping (we don't have church until 1:00, don't judge us).  As they were heading out of our room I said, "Luke, make sure you are quite so you don't wake up Bryson, he's still sleeping".  After Brandon got a show on he turned around to find Bryson... standing in living room... with mud up to his ankles... Yup, he got up at who knows what time, headed outside, and played in the mud for who knows how long.  Really cute, but also really scary!  He could have taken off anywhere!  We are now in the habit of making sure every door in the house is dead bolted before we go to bed.  Luckily he hasn't figured out the dead bolt.  Yet.

Bluhblella

I few months ago I picked up some umbrellas for the kids at the dollar store.  When I bought them I thought they would maybe last an afternoon if we were lucky, but they have lasted and lasted.  The boys have been so hard them and they just keep on going.   

 So, on rainy days and sunny days they like to pull them out and play with their, as Bryson calls them, "bluhblellas".

Love these two little boys.  You can tell that we've spent that last year building a house and spent a fair amount of time at home hardware or the "popcorn store".  We had a babysitter come over the weekend and when we asked Luke what they did together he said, "She had to do some home hardwork."

We can't wait to find out what the new baby will be.  Only another 2 1/2 months to go.  I need to take a baby bump picture, but I'm just not super motivated to take pictures of myself when I look like I'm carrying a watermelon in my shirt.

The other day Luke asked my how the doctor gets the baby out.  For the first time I was extremely grateful that I have had c-sections with both our kids.  I was abl.e to say, "the doctor is going to cut open my tummy, take the baby out, and sew me back up."  No awkward conversations about the birds and the bees around here.  

Lately

We love the sunshine!  It's been a beautiful spring so far and we've been spending as much time outside as possible.  I can't wait for a yard with grass instead of just dirt, mud and rocks, but we are enjoying being able to work outside with the sun on our backs.  We are finally going to get some front steps which means Brandon has been finishing up the porch.  The boys want to make sure they don't miss out on anything and always make sure their tools are ready to go whenever Daddy is.  Today Luke asked my to move his toy work bench out into the garage by Daddy's.  I mean, what good is a tool bench inside the house?  I LOVE this picture of Bryson helping build the deck.  LOVE it.  

It is always a special treat when the kids get to help with the loader.  Good thing Grandpa is always around to help us out.  I'm so glad to finally get our yard backfilled, but a little sad that the kids won't get to ride around in here anymore.

 We've been doing a lot of bike riding and going for walks.  This is what your street looks like when you and everyone around you is building a new house.  Very scenic.

 This was taken a few weeks ago when Luke learned to ride his bike.  Yes, Brandon is wearing socks with his flip flops.  We like to make sure we are style when we leave the house.

 And last, but not least, Brandon turned 32!  You only get to celebrate your "Jimmer" birthday once!  Not the most creative cake, but the kids helped with it.  I let Luke pick out any kind of candy he wanted for Daddy's cake and these are what he chose.  It's not easy for a 4 year old to only choose ONE kind of candy when they are standing in the candy isle of the grocery store.  It took a while.  He may have had some encouragement based on the the price of marshmallow strawberries compared to other choices on the shelf.

 After we were finished with the cake and ice cream, my two year old niece, Sadee asked where all the presents were.  Birthdays aren't as fun when you are turning 32.  You just get boring cards.  But it's still fun dreaming about what you will buy with all that birthday cash.

He's Advanced...

I admit that I am a proud parent and think my kids have certain strengths. But admittedly, so far anyways, one of Luke's strengths is NOT his athleticism. That is why I was so impressed when he learned to ride a bike in about three "attempts", never having used training wheels. On Saturday, Candice found a bike that should have been in the trash years ago, that instead, someone thought some poor sucker would pay money for. Candice took the bait and brought home a bike with tires that don't hold air and one of the pedals was taped on. Luke tried riding it that afternoon but was not really interested. I held the seat and did the run behind thing for about five minutes. I could tell he was getting the hang of it but for whatever reason he wasn't really excited about his bike with one pedal. On Monday night we borrowed an old bike from Benson that had two pedals. We tried again and he started to figure out the pedals but wanted to make sure someone was near behind him. Tonight I thought it would be the same thing but I was wrong. You see, tonight, Luke figured out that the bike had the word "Rocket" on it, and that can only mean one thing--the bike was made to go fast. So when I helped him get started, he said "see if you can keep up to me!" and the rest is history.

It would be fun if I could claim that Luke is athletically advanced, but I can't. I can't even claim to be a really great teacher. I attribute his biking success to the strider bike that he learned to balance on when he was two years old. The Strider was expensive, but it is still getting plenty of milage.

Sleep-Overs and Puddle Jumping

This post is much overdue.  I can't believe that last time I updates was March 20th!  I don't really have a good excuse either.  Bryson had his second birthday, which we didn't get any good pictures of.  We mostly took video of him with his cake and presents.  I should have had my Mom take pictures while Brandon ran the video camera, but it's too late now.  

Anyway,  April has been a pretty busy month.  We had my brothers 4 kids come and stay with us for a week while he went on a trip with his wife.  It actually went better than I thought it would.  The kids had tons of fun together and everyone behaved pretty well.  It was a little crazy having 6 kids under the age of 7, but I learned a lot.  I learned that food disappears with that many mouths to feed.  Seriously, every meal I would look at what I prepared and think, "There is no way we are going to eat all of this.  I made WAY to much".  Any within minutes it was gone.  We had pancakes or waffles for breakfast every morning, which the kids thought was great, but the real reason I did it is because who can afford to go through a box of cereal everyday?  

 It was fun to put our new house to the test and see that we could sleep eight if we had to.  Not that that is ever going to happen, but just in case, at least we know it's possible.  These three boys thought it was great sleeping in the same room.  These beds got jumped on A LOT that week.

 

This picture is not from the sleepover.  I actually took it just this week.  I finally finished making Bryson a quilt for his big boy bed so he could move out of his crib.  This was their first night sharing a room.  Well, technically, they haven't REALLY shared a room yet because Bryson won't sleep in it.  He get's all excited every night to sleep with Luke and they spend 1/2 hour talking and playing together in there.  Then when Bryson is tired and ready to sleep he cries to go in his crib.  "I go crib, I go crib".  He won't sleep in for naptime either.  Is this normal?  I have gotten him to fall asleep in there twice now, but both times he woke up and hour later and cried for his crib.  

We had a pretty good rainfall this last week and the boys were able to put their gum boots to good use. Is there anything better than splashing around in the mud?  We learned something about Bryson's boots this day, they have holes in them. When we took them off they were full of mud and water.  I've since thrown them away.  Sadly.  Love those boots.

Notice Bryson's backpack?  He insisted on wearing it.  There isn't anything in it, but he looks cool anyway.

I'm 5 months along now!  Yeah!  Four more to go.  We get to enjoy a summer of freedom and then back to being a little more tied down in September.  I had my ultrasound two weeks ago.  It went well I think.  I didn't hear from my doctor so I guess that means everything looked alright.  We decided not to find out what we are having!  Ahhh!  So hard to wait, but it will be worth it in the end, right?  So far we've had a really hard time coming up with names, which might be in part because we don't know if it's a boy or girl.  I did find a girl name that I'm kind of crazy about, but I don't think Brandon loves it quite as much as I do.  I'm sure we'll have it narrowed down by the time September rolls around.  For now I'm just enjoying the tiny kicks I feel all day, and appreciating the fact that I feel so good.  Don't know how people can stand being pregnant when it makes them sick.  I'm one of the lucky ones who has never thrown up while pregnant.  I count that blessing.

Bryson Boy

One time, when Bryson was a little baby, Luke was in trouble for something and was having a little time out in his room. Through his tears he kept calling out, "I need my Bryson boy. I just need my Bryson boy!" So, the name has stuck.

People always talk about the things you will miss one day when your kids are grown and you don't have toddlers in the house anymore. The fingerprints, the messes, the pitter patter of little feet across the kitchen floor. I will miss all of those things, but one thing that will always remind me of Bryson is the sound of a stool or chair being pushed across the room. All day long I hear the sliding and I know it's time to find him before whatever it is that he is interested in ends up on the floor. (This week it was a pitcher of orange juice)

This little boy is very tender and loves to give hugs and kisses. He has a smile ready for anyone that will take one and will always run to the arms of anyone new who has entered the room. He has a special place in his heart for Grandma and Grandpa, as well as his cousin, Sadie. In addition to getting attached to people, he also gets very attached to things. For example, a few weeks ago I noticed that his Sunday shirt was getting to small. So the following Sunday I pulled a new one out for him that fit better. After I put it on him Sunday morning, he looked down and realized it was NOT that same shirt he usually wears to church he got quite upset. Hestarted crying and trying to pull off while saying, "Nooooo! Church shirt... church shirt." He is also attached to his blankie and soother, of course, his bunny, his ducky, and his GUM BOOTS! He has a pair of Luke's boots that look like little frogs (which are about 4 sizes too big for him) that he will NOT leave the house without (unless it's sunday, at which time he will ALLOW me to put on his sunday shoes). Here are a few pictures of said boots.

A few days ago he decided that he not only needed to be wearing them outside, but inside as well. I should have put a stop to it right away, but hey, it was cute. So I let him wear them around the house all day. When it came to nap time, I took them off, which he was not happy about, but he was more tired than he was upset. As soon as he woke up, he went strait to his boots and put them back on. That night after dinner, it was time for a bath. We headed upstairs, Luke stripped down and jumped in. Bryson however, would NOT take off his boots to get in. After a few unsuccessful minutes of trying to convince him to take them off so I could get his pants and diaper off, I finally pinned him down and pulled them off. Immediately after I finished he jumped up and pulled those boots right back on. He ran to the bathroom and tried to climb in with them on. It was quite a battle and there were a few angry tears. He did NOT understand why he couldn't wear gum boots in the tub!
Well, I finally won and he got in without those boots. I have since hidden them and only pull them out when it is time to go somewhere. I love this stubborn little boy.

A real juggling act!

As I mentioned in the post about our cruise, Brandon bought some juggling balls that we have both been working with daily. We are getting pretty good, although I think Brandon has taken a slight lead. Next step - the circus.

Speaking of circus, we are going to be having one of our own around here because we are having another baby in September! It's a good thing we've been fine tuning our juggling skills because we are going to need them as soon as we are outnumbered this fall. We can't wait and although we didn't find out what we were having with the first two, I am REALLY tempted to find out this time. I still have another month or so before my ultrasound, so I guess we'll see how I'm feeling that day! We are so excited!

Fun in the... SNOW

We were so excited last week when we finally got enough snow to play in it. When you only get one good snowfall all winter you can really appreciate it. So with a heavy snowfall and a warm sunny day we couldn't resist building a snowman! Of course, we failed to get a picture of the snowman actually completed, but we did get one of our work in progress.I'm loving the sunglasses. Best thing we bought on our cruise.Bryson was having a great time! He has hardly been outside since we moved into our new house. We moved in December 10th and just haven't really had a good reason yet to go out and play.He also couldn't resist a little taste of this cool white stuff.The next day was Saturday and the weather was just nice enough in the morning to get in a little tobogganing with Brandon. We LOVE saturdays when Daddy doesn't have to go to work! We didn't last too long because the wind started to pick up and then it got really cold. But we had fun while it lasted. If you look really closely at this picture you will see that Bryson is crying. He was done by the time I pulled out the camera. Cute story - Luke thinks that when you say we are going tobogganing, it means to bogganing. All morning he kept asking when we were going bogganing.The rest of our days have been filled with fun inside. We had Luke's FIRST birthday on the 29th, of which I did make a fun cake, but the pictures are on my Mom's camera. I will post about that when I get the pictures. Here is a picture of him with all his new presents.

The kids have been enjoying the new washable paints we found at walmart. Luke has enjoyed painting with it. Bryson has enjoyed eating it and rubbing it all over his body like lotion. I need to get a picture of that next time.Lastly, Bryson is so curious lately. Whatever I am doing he MUST be in middle of it. All day long you can hear chairs and stools being pushed around the kitchen so he can get a better view of what is going on above him. The other day when we got home from church I started peeling the potatoes right away and got them in the water. Leaving the peeler and potatoes on the counter I headed upstairs to change. I came back down to find this. He didn't miss a beat. Such a good little helper. A dang cute little helper.