More Projects

Braysen and I went to the OC Fair tonight with Jason, Marlo, & Emery. I'll blog about that tomorrow. Tonight I'm tired. :)

Just a quick post that doesn't require much but a single photo upload and a few words. I found these blocks on Pinterest and decided that I needed some, so I made them.

Pallet Project

Remember the pallet that was in the background of the fudge popsicle pictures?

Yeah, that's the one.

Well, it's finished and found it's new home in my longer-than-really-necessary entry hallway.

Fudgsicles

We accomplished #21 on our summer to-do list: Make Fudge Popsicles

They were super easy, and I was really happy to find another use for Braysen's containers from his homemade baby food! I do have popsicle molds that I've used for the watermelon popsicles I made for the boys, but I wanted something much smaller because the watermelon popsicles were all fruit and these had chocolate and sugar in them.

"C'mon, Mom, let's go!!"

There is a reason he is in only a diaper. :)

Sidetracked by an airplane. He loooves airplanes. And since we live so close to the base, we have planes flying over our house constantly. So all day long, every time he hears an "air pane" we have to run outside to check it out. And yes, he sits and points like this every time until he can't see the plane anymore.

I love his face in this one! Don't mind the pallet that you can see in the background, it's part of one of my current projects that is almost finished. I have a blog I'm working on for that one too.

Maybe it's a good idea we decided to do this on a day that Daddy wasn't home. :)

Braysen & Emery

I know I'm skipping ahead a few posts, but I finally got around to uploading the pics from Justin & Natalie's Engagement Party, and seeing the pictures of the kiddos playing brings me back to that day and I want to blog about that instead! :)

Emery and Braysen played so well that day. I've always said that Braysen is my little bruiser and since he was teeny tiny he's been just plain rough. I think he finally met his match with Emery. She gave it right back to him. They were rough and rambunctious and ran around and chased each other around the backyard almost all evening. I don't think I've ever seen him play so much with another little one. He wouldn't let Emery out of his sight. If she took off running, he wasn't too far behind.

I don't have very many pictures of anybody besides Emery and Braysen. Yep, I'm that mom who constantly takes pictures of her kids and forgets about everybody else. Oh well. I did manage to get one shot of Tony and me, but his eyes are closed in the picture (as they usually are) so he'd probably kill me if I posted it here.

Peek-a-boo!

Whew! Water break!

Sleeping

I have been very hesitant to post anything about Braysen's most recent sleeping arrangements. In my last blog about his sleep it was still taking several tries to get him down each night. Things have been much better, but I didn't want to say that in fear that they would take a turn for the worse.

He puts himself to sleep at both bedtime and naptime regularly. Usually he hops out of bed before I can even get out of his room. I just lay him back down and remind him that it's bedtime and he lays there until he falls asleep. Sometimes it does take more than one try, but it's very rare. It does happen though. Here is what my hallway looked like one night after I had to take several toys out of his room. Every time he got up, he grabbed a toy. I laid him back down and took the toy out of the room every time. Eventually he gave up.

Another night it was his books. My hall was full of books, but the picture I took disappeard. :-/

It makes me laugh because even though I was much older and reading chapter books, I can remember my mom coming in my room and catching me reading when I was supposed to be in bed.

And other times, he decides that the bed is just not comfy enough, so decides to conk out on the floor instead.

Courtnie's Blocks

Watermelon Cake Pops

Saw these on Pinterest (and I had a friend email me to tell me about them) and decided I had to try them.

MORE!?

I tried starting baby sign language with Braysen when he was 5 or 6 months old. We started with the sign for the word "more" and were going to learn other words once he learned that one. We worked on it for months, and he never picked it up for even his first sign. By the time he was 10 months old, I gave up on it.

Two weeks ago he was snacking on some tomatoes while I cooked dinner. When he was done, he looked at me, did the sign for "more" and said the word "more". I haven't showed him the sign in months, which means this little stinker understood what I was doing the entire time, he just chose to not do it. He certainly has a mind of his own! Now I can't get him to stop, so I taught him the signs for "eat" and "milk" also. What's weird is that since he started signing, he has suddenly started talking more than he ever has.

Strawberry Lemonade Smoothies

We haven't gotten a ton of things from our to-do list completed, but we have done several of them. #1 on the list was Strawberry Lemonade Smoothies. I really do believe that Braysen is going to be my little chef. Every single time I'm in the kitchen, no matter what he is doing, he drops everything and wants to see what's going on. I can't wait until he's old enough and I can give him jobs for him to "help" in the kitchen!

Yum! I diluted his smoothie quite a bit with water. I didn't want it to be too sweet and I also didn't want him to get brain freeze.

Tony was very upset that he wasn't going to be included in some of the things on my to-do list, so we popped some in the freezer for him. He didn't seem to mind that it was in a pink container.

Yum! He sucked this thing down so fast. I don't think he even took a breath as he was drinking it.

I Caved

I did. Somehow I got talked into going back to the dealership yesterday and drove home in this.

Cell phone pic. I know it's bad, but it's all I've got. I was REALLY upset when I found out that they had Tony ring the "gong" in the dealership for buying a new car. I was getting the carseat out of the 'bu, so I totally missed it! :( I wanted to get a picture of that, even though I'm sure he'd probably kill me.

So I upgraded from a 'bu to a 'hoe, awesome.

Did I Get Lost?

I know, I know, bad blogger! I said I would do a blog a day, but what happened yesterday?


I'll tell you what happened yesterday. Somehow after dinner, I got talked into going to the car dealership to look at these.

Personally, I am just fine with my little car. Tony has been talking for over a year about buying a new car. After our first river trip with a baby, to be exact. He couldn't believe how ridiculously small my trunk seemed once we had to load all of our stuff.

Long story short, we didn't come home with a new car. I am really uncomfortable with what our monthly payment will be. Not just the car payment, but this means that our monthly Shell bill will go up, along with our car insurance. Not to say we can't afford it, I know we can, but I pay the bills, and I just don't want our car payment to be as high as it would be if we bought this car. I also wasn't IN LOVE with the color of the interior of the one they had on the lot. He's still working on me, so we'll see what happens. But for now, no new car!

Where to Begin?!

Honestly, I don't know where to begin. My summer break has been so full of activities that I have had very little free time. I have accomplished several things on my to-do list, but not as many as I would liked to.

Today was my official lat day of decorating cakes. I had two fairly large orders for this weekend (and one smaller one), and they were my last. I know I've been saying for a long time that I was going to take a cake break, but one of the orders was booked a very long time ago (long before I decided to take a break), one was for a friend's baby shower (which I couldn't possibly say no to), and the third was an emergency cupcake order for a bridal shower (which I also couldn't possibly say no to once I heard the story behind it). I know, I'm a softy! What can I say? :)  A huge part of my problem is that I have a really hard time telling people "no" when it comes to cakes. I really enjoy doing them, so every order that comes my way I want to take. Not taking any new orders is a way of getting my life back under control.

Braysen is so little and requires so much of my attention. He will never be this little again. If I spend all my daytime hours being tired because I was up all night working on a cake while he's asleep, then I feel like I'm totally missing out. I don't want to do that anymore. Maybe someday when he's a little older I will pick it back up, but for now, I'm done. Well, with the exception of somebody that I owe big time (this means you, Rhiannon!), and of course family and close friend favors.

I know I have a lot of blogging to do, but don't want to spend my first cake-free moments blogging all night. I may do one or two blogs each day until I'm caught up.

Slides!

Knott's Soak City

Yesterday was Mark's birthday, so we went to Soak City. Braysen had a blast. Duh. There was water involved.

Bad mommy left his water cup at home, so he used mine for the day.

These glasses crack me up! He and I both hate how they wrap around his head, and he will only wear them for a minute or two, but still funny!

Waving to us as he is in line to go on the water slide.

I know he looks scared in the pictures on the slides. Before you think I was torturing my kid for fun, take a look at his face in this next picture. As soon as we would take him out of the pool, he would march his way back up the hill to get in line. Or insist that somebody pick him up, and then he would point to the line at the top of the little hill.

Please excuse the rolls on my stomach as we enjoyed our Dippin Dots. Which Braysen loved, by the way. As soon as ours were gone, he moved on to everybody else in the group who was willing to share with him.

He loves tomatoes almost as much, though!

And no day with Braysen would be complete without him finding some type of trouble to get into.

Uploading videos and will post them in a bit!