Freddy Krueger attack?

Or bike accident?

Trip to Texas

Last weekend (Thursday - Monday), we flew down to Texas. Yep, flew. With all 3 kids and no checked bags. There have to be people like us in airports so other people who are delayed or missed a connection can think, "well, I guess things could be worse....at least I'm not travelling with 3 small children".

Getting down there was not so bad. Getting back was another story. One I will save for the end of the post.

We got in on Thursday evening and headed out to Murphy, TX to my cousin Amy's house. She and her husband Mik also have 3 kids, all girls - Anna (5), Mia (3), and Lila (3 months), so pretty much the same ages as my kids. Ethan had to play with a bunch of girl toys and may have dressed up as Minnie Mouse 1 or 4 times, but he still had fun with all the girls.

They just finished a new pool in their backyard, so compared to our sandbox and 1 swing in our yard, their house was fun central. They have a pool with a diving board and slide, a hot tub, a trampoline, and a playground with playhouse, swings, and slide. The kids were in heaven.

We did a lot of swimming and playing! We had a little party/get together on Friday night at their house and then on Saturday we headed to my cousin Chris's wedding in Dallas. Chris is my cousin who is closest in age to me. Only 5 days older than me. Although he's from Dallas, he went to college at UNC Greensboro so we got to see him quite a bit during our college years.

We got all gussied up on Saturday and headed to the wedding at 4 o'clock.

After a full day of swimming, the kids were a little tired. All of them!

Glad they snuck the naps in because we stayed at the reception until about 9:30pm when Brynn had just about had it. The wedding was beautiful though and it was so nice to see that side of the family. Wished we could have socialized a bit more, but weddings go by so quickly and even more so when you have 3 kids with you!

Sunday we headed out to Irving to my grandmothers house (Big Gaga) for a little birthday party for Brynn and my sister, who turned 35 the day before Brynn's birthday. I say "little", but I guess there were at least 35 or 40 people who were there. At one point we did get a picture of my grandmother with 14 of her 20 great grandchildren (and actually #21 was born 2 days ago).

Monday it was time to head home. Little did we know it would take us 2 days to get home. We knew a storm was coming, so drove a little faster so we could turn in our rental car and not get dumped on (and not get hailed on), but we could have taken a 4 hour detour and still made our flight. Stupid storm. So we missed our connection in Atlanta and then the last flight to Roanoke was full so we had to spend the night in Atlanta and then fly home in the morning.

Although the travel home was not great, at least the rest of our trip was really, really fun.

Brynn's first birthday

Ok, I've got some blogging to catch up on, but I'm starting with Brynn's 1st birthday. I missed updates on 10 months and 11 months (and maybe even 9 months), so I simply cannot be slack and skip the 1 year update.

On her actual birthday, other than saying, "happy birthday", we did nothing special. We flew home from our delayed flight, took her to daycare, picked her up later, did dinner and bath and put her to bed. No presents, no cake, no ice cream. We're pretty crappy parents, huh? Well, she actually did her cake and ice cream in Texas on Sunday at Big Ga Ga's house (Brynn's great-grandmother). Brynn had a blast with that and was not interested in sharing at all.

Holy Moly! How did she get that way? Here's the video....a little long, but priceless.

And presents? Well, we got her that tricycle a couple months ago and that was her present.

Unfortunately the day after her birthday (yesterday), she got a fever at school and had to be sent home. Not sure what it was as she isn't really sick (maybe teeth), but she's also been home with me today. I still ended up taking her for her 1 year doctor appointment yesterday, but due to the fever she could not get shots yet.

So what is Brynn up to these days?

• She is 20 lbs 14 oz and 29.5 inches long
• She has 6 teeth (4 on top and 2 on the bottom)
• She is taking a few steps, but not quite "walking". She seems to be getting a little braver each day about it, but unlike Blythe she is not fearless
• She hasn't really said her first word yet. She says mama and dada and "dis" and "dat" (actually it's usually "disdat!"), but no "real" words.
• She's starting to imitate sounds that I make. She can make an owl sound and a monkey sound and earlier today tried to make a duck sound.
• She's good at trying to let me know what she wants, however, by pointing. On the airplane to Texas the woman next to us was playing with a stuffed animal to entertain Brynn. After a while she put it down and then Brynn started pointing at the lady and then to the stuffed animal. Back and forth until the lady started back up again. Thought that was pretty smart of Brynn.
• She's happy most of the time. Except when I put her down and walk into another room. OMG, mom has left me! FOREVER!
• She is madly in love with her "bubba" (her blanket). Instead of burying her face in it though, she will touch it very softly to her lips so that she can feel it and smell it at the same time. It's so sweet.
• She has a friend at school (named Ryleigh) and is anxious to reunite with her. She turned 1 on May 4, so moved up to the toddler room then. Brynn moves up next week.
• She actually likes riding in the stroller. Hallelujah....I finally have a child who will sit still in a stroller! When we were in the airport last weekend, we actually had a child in our stroller and not a stroller full of all our crap while we held our child (like we had to do with Blythe and Ethan).
• She continues to have a very laid back personality, which makes for a great #3 child. She is very much loved. Happy Birthday Brynn the Panda (that's what Ethan calls her...not really sure why).

Gommy visits for the weekend

Gommy came to visit over the weekend. Braden was out of town so I asked Gommy to come so we could do fun stuff. There's lots of things I'd like to do with the kids, but it's hard to do by myself. Go to Mill Mountain Zoo in Roanoke, go to Safari Park, go to Cascades.....lots of stuff OUTDOORS to do. But Gommy brought rain with her. Lots and lots of rain. We had a few dry moments.

Friday wasn't too bad for a little while (got rain and lightning and thunder later....VT graduation was cancelled). So we were able to ride bikes for a while.

It's the South-going Zax and the North-going Zax

Saturday morning we had a t-ball game. The rain held out for half of it. The other half we sat in the rain. Ethan cried because he didn't want to play. I convinced him that Gommy had come to see him play and she would be sad if he didn't play. So he played. He wasn't as into the game this time, but kept himself entertained.

The game was over early and then we had a whole day of nothing planned. And lots of rain. So we headed to the public library and got a library card. Spent a while there picking out some books and checked out 7 books and brought them home to read.

The kids were bored and were fighting a lot, so we went out to dinner at Red Robin. It was fairly uneventful which means it was a pretty good "out to eat" experience. Brynn has suddenly become an extremely picky eater and won't even put things in her mouth to try them. Although she loved grilled cheese and french fries 2 weeks ago, now she throws them on the floor. So she ate 3 mandarine orange pieces and that's it. But she was happy, so whatever.

Sunday we went to church for Sunday school. Tried to drop Brynn off in the nursery so my mom and I could kick back and enjoy a cup or 2 of tea, but Brynn had other plans. Cried and screamed and cried some more. So we hung with her while Blythe and Ethan were in Sunday school. Later at home Brynn seemed just fine.

Anyway, after lunch Gommy headed back home. And go figure that as soon as she left, we got no more rain and the rest of the day was beautiful. Hmmm.

Farewell to the Envoy

On Monday last week we finally sold our Envoy. It was bittersweet. Nice to get rid of it since we had already bought a new car and didn't really want 3 cars (especially when only 1 is in the garage), but sad since it was the first new car we ever had and we loved that car the whole time we had it.

I bought that car for Braden as a surprise birthday present in 2003 (and when I say "bought", I mean "put down a small down payment"). We were living in Chicago at the time. Braden had gotten a 1998 Tahoe from his parents when he graduated from college. After moving to Chicago, we soon found out that it wasn't so practical for parallel parking in tight spots and it got like 9 miles per gallon in city driving. We tried to sell it, but go figure that no one in Chicago wants a 2 wheel-drive SUV. So my dad decided he would like it. We traded cars (and some money) and ended up with a Mercury Mystique. Not exactly Braden's dream car, but much more practical. Then in 2003 Braden started looking for coaching jobs and we knew we would probably move. So I took some of the money we had saved and went to test drive some cars (one weekend when I had the car and Braden was out of town). I didn't buy the car that day, but I settled on the Envoy and bought it a different day. I left work early one day and took the train and then the bus to the closest bus stop, then walked the remaining half mile to the dealership. Got a great deal on it, bought it, and did not drive it home. Instead I left it there for 2 weeks (to install sunroof and clean it and because it was my birthday in a few days and I wanted to wait until after my birthday). 2 weeks later my parents were in town, so they took me there to pick it up. It wasn't cleaned and had no sunroof, but I needed to pick it up that day....it was all part of my plan. So I got the sunroof for free and agreed to bring it back in a couple of days for install. In the meantime, it was time to give Braden his surprise.

I wrapped up the key and the window sticker and he was pretty surprised when he opened the gift.

We thought we'd have that car until the wheels fell off. Then we had 3 kids. In carseats.

Hopefully the next owner loves it as much as we did! Farewell Envoy!

Mother's Day

Finally had the motivation to blog last and then Blogger is down. Grrr.

Anyway, it's back up now. Mother's Day this year was really nice. Blythe and Ethan made me frames with their photos in them when they were at the church the night before. I finally cleared off all the junk on my filing cabinet in my office so they look nice there. They gave me those and a card they had written in. Ethan wrote "E" "T" and "H" from his name. He's getting there.

Braden got me some nice lotion, gels, and spray from Bath and Body Works. Thought it was going to rain most of the day, so we didn't really plan much to do, but we did grill out BBQ chicken burgers (mmmm!), had a dance party in our driveway, and let Brynn have her first bike ride!

She had a helmet on, but she couldn't really see and she REALLY hated it, so we took it off and she enjoyed the bike ride much more.

Poor Braden then had to give Ethan a bike ride and Blythe. It's not exactly flat around here (FAR from it), so it was quite the workout with all that extra weight.

I actually got to celebrate Mother's Day for 3 days. On Friday, I went to Ethan's class at school for a Mother's Day breakfast and we had donuts with sprinkles (and fruit). Then later in the afternoon I went to Blythe's class for cake and ice cream. Both kids also made me flower pots and gave me candy (which I somehow managed to get none of). Saturday I guess we didn't really celebrate, but Braden did finish doing the Trex on our deck (so that is a celebration in and of itself).

More "firsts"

We had a couple of pretty exciting "firsts" over the last couple of days.

Blythe tied her shoes all by herself yesterday for school. Quite the accomplishment! You know, that's actually one of my early memories. The first time I tied my own shoes. I was so proud of myself. I showed my mom and she was very proud as well, but then pointed out that my shoes were on the wrong feet. Doh!

Brynn took her first steps! She hadn't even taken one step on her own, but then took 4 steps on Thursday. Only because she wasn't thinking about it and just walked to Braden when he called her. Then he tried to get her to do it again and she did what she normally does and act like her feet are glued to the floor and try to lunge forward and hope that someone catches her before she does a face plant. Yesterday though she did take 1 step a couple of different times.

Progress, people. Progress is being made.

Date Night....ruined!

Tonight was SUPPOSED to be date night. Free babysitting for 3 and half hours...how can you pass that up? It was "Kids Fun Night" at our church from 5:30 to 9:00 for ALL ages. Awesome! Even Brynn can go!

But Noooooo....Brynn had to get sick on Wednesday this week. Diarhea during the day then fever, then threw up after I picked her up from school. Poor thing was miserable. Woke up miserable Thursday morning too. Fever again and more diarhea. She went through lots of clothes on Thursday. Friday she woke up feeling pretty good. No fever and was eating again. I tried to take her to school, but they said she had to be diarhea-free for 24 hours. Ugh. Good thing though because she still had it all day on Friday. Poor thing...her diaper rash was SO bad. We stopped all milk and formula and switched her to Pedialyte.

Today she's been quite a bit better. Only pooped 2 times, but man, the diaper rash is SO bad. I think she may even have some blisters. So really, free babysitters at the church shouldn't have to deal with that. And she didn't nap that long today, so she was tired. We opted instead to send Blythe and Ethan and try to take Brynn with us out to eat. But she was screaming in the car as soon as we dropped off Blythe and Ethan.

So date night? Calzone carry-out to the house, a bottle of white wine, and some good conversation (all after Brynn went to bed). So actually in hindsight, date night turned out pretty well.

The weekend...with photos!

In my mind, this post was going to be called "the weekend...in photos". But I'm a slacker. A total slacker when it comes to taking photos, so instead we get "first quarter of weekend...in photos".

So clearly, we had a t-ball game. Went pretty well. The snack was mini pop-tarts and Blythe knew about the mini pop-tart snack since practice Wednesday when her friend told her about them. I think Blythe was a little annoyed she had to make through an entire practice and a game in order to get the snack.

After the t-ball game, Ethan had a birthday party to attend. I took Blythe as well so Braden could work on our deck (while Brynn napped). It was a construction themed party at the park, so they got the cool hats and the Home Depot aprons. They were excited to help Daddy with the deck when they got back, but Daddy was super fast and had already finished all the boards by the time we got home (all the boards we had...still need to buy more).

Not pictured activities of the weekend....

• Our first successful family movie night at home. Well, 80% of the family (since Brynn was asleep). We rented "Despicable Me". Cute movie.
• We had a picnic at the Duck Pond, which we hadn't been to in almost 2 years. We brought lots of old bread, but the ducks mostly weren't that interested in food. Their interests were elsewhere. Apparently it's mating season and the male ducks were very busy trying to woo the female ducks. It was quite interesting to watch as some of the males would try to fight off other males. We also saw a horse drawn carriage from a wedding that had just ended.
• We had ice cream at Ben & Jerry's. Mmmmm.....
• We went to Ginsey's birthday party at the gymnastics place. It had a big inflatable slide and of course, the foam pit, so that was loads of fun.
• Braden played in a golf tournament with some other coaches and some local big wigs and his team WON! He got a new golf bag as a prize.
• Brynn started on whole milk, so we'll finish up the formula we have and then will not have to buy anymore! Yay for saving $$$!

So an eventful, but nice weekend. Got to love a nice weekend at home sometimes.

That can't be comfortable

She's been like that for almost 2 hours now, so I guess it's comfortable to her.