Mothers Day Weekend

Hayes and Me at our "It's almost Mothers Day dinner" at Los Rancheros in Dunwoody.

Photo Booth

Beefaroni, Brian, and a Little Bit of Nostalgia

Beefaroni: Bradford's favorite meal.

Here is a funny memory that I forgot to post earlier! To kickoff the new school year, the boys' school has a Fall pyjama and pancake party for all of the students and their families. After eating a delicious dinner of syrup laden pancakes, the kids were surprised by a fairy ready to enchant them with a (pre) bed time story. As she was introducing the idea of her story, she asked the children, who were gathered at her feet, what their Moms have been cooking lately for dinner. Many hands were raised. Odds would have it that she called on our oldest. She then beckoned for him to come up to the front and speak into the microphone so that everyone in attendance could hear.

Storyteller: "What has your Mom cooked lately for dinner?"

Bradford: "Beefaroni!"

The audience tittered.

Surely, he must be joking.

Sadly, he was not.

I overheard Moms behind me saying,

"Beefaroni!? Like, the Chef Boyardee stuff that comes in a can?"

"That is just hilarious"

I felt nearby eyes fixing on me as they made the association that I was Bradfords' Mom, the beefaroni maker.

"We just moved"

I offered to all as an explanation, hoping that they would understand the intricacies of picture hanging and demands of furniture arranging. I mean, who has time to cook dinner when there are drapes that are begging to be hung?

Right?

Introducing.... Brian, our elf!

Why the name Brian, you might wonder? Well, Bradford thought that it was a very responsible sounding name. Any responsible elf needs a responsible sounding name, don't you think?

So, Brian returned to our family this year in a most unplanned way. In preparation to decorate the house for Christmas, we brought up from the basement storage room all of our bins holding our Christmas decorations. Of course, the boys clawed open the bins and immediately begun rifling through them. Before I could find Brian and discretely tuck him away, he was found twisted and wedged between two Victorian carolers.

The boys were aghast.

Bradford, near tears, said, "Brian has been packed all year! He didn't get to go back to the North Pole to be with Santa!"

He thought for a moment, and then exclaimed,"Wait, how did he get here in this bin?"

Meanwhile, Hayes stood silent knowing that he was in the presence of a real elf.

We all stood there in shock.

I knew the magic of the elf was in jeopardy.

I had to think quickly.

"Well," I explained to the boys, "Santa wanted to give us a special surprise this year. He knew that this was our very first Christmas in our new house, so he wanted to surprise us with Brian early, right when we were putting up our decorations! Isn't that so thoughtful of Santa?"

I then did my part to keep the magic alive and dutifully went to the kitchen and got two large serving spoons.

"Now, we don't want to touch Brian and make him loose his magic," I said as I carefully held Brian between the two spoons.

"I'll put him on top of the refrigerator so that he can watch us decorate," I told the boys as I gingerly placed Brian atop of the highest point in the kitchen.

Later that day when I heard the boys telling Brian how good they had been, I knew that they had bought my story and that we had another year of the magic of believing ahead of us.

Yesterday, we were in Hobby Lobby buying the boys their one special ornament that they each get to pick out every year. As we were in line to pay for them, Hayes was running around and basically not minding me at all.

Bradford, the rule follower, blurted out in frustration at our non rule follower, "Hayes, I am going to tell BRIAN that you are not minding Mommy!"

Hayes, horrified, yelled LOUDLY. "NO BRADFORD! Please, please don't tell BRIAN!"

A few of the customers in the line laughed but many looked at me with real concern on their face.

I'm sure that they were wondering, "Who is this mean Brian person?"

I didn't say anything, but in hind sight I wish that I told them that he was just an elf hanging on our dining room chandelier at the moment.

P.S. Hayes does have a band-aid on his face in this picture. Please be assured that he is not injured, he is just going through a band-aid phase.

Circa 2010: The boys and me horsing around in the kids' bathroom of our old house.

I was feeling a bit nostalgic last night and went through all of our old pictures. I found this goody and loved how it captured the joy that we felt in that cozy home. Also, as Hayes was obviously about to go to bed in this picture, I'm sure that a pacifier is within ten inches of him. With that being said, drum roll please, I am proud to announce that he has been pacifier free for a week! How did we do it? Well, Hayes did it. He bit a hole in his last pacifier and we just said, "Oh, so sad, it's broken."

After realizing that a broken paci is not fun to suck, he threw it down and moved on.

I think that means that we should have done this awhile ago. :)

I also found this picture of John horsing around with the boys in the backyard. 

He is a great father! So, we are trying to teach the boys manners. Thus, we are constantly adding "sir" or "ma'am" to the end of their sentences. John, bless him, is the head manner enforcer and does a great job modeling the type of manners that we want for them to have.

Last week, while we were eating dinner (not beefaroni, I might add), a strange cat snuck up on our deck and was eating our (well, mostly Johns') beloved cats' food.

John, irate, ran to back door and yelled at the cat," NO SIR! Absolutely not! NO SIR! Do not eat our cats food!"

Meanwhile, the boys and I were all laughing hilariously inside. Between giggles we said to one another, "Who says sir to a cat?"

Our well-mannered John does.

Thankful Hearts: Thanksgiving 2011

We started off our Thanksgiving week with a feast at the boys' school.
Here is Bradford in the tee-pee in his classroom.

A Thanksgiving feast! Bradford is the Indian on the top left.

The next day we walked to the "Light Up Dunwoody" Holiday Festival where the tree was lit in the town center. Of course, we had to stop for a few pictures by one of the Dunwoody signs.

We love living in Dunwoody!

John loves Dunwoody, too!
His best line of the night after the beautiful lighting of the Dunwoody Christmas tree surrounded by our neighbors and friends was, " And this is what you get living in a small town."
We liken Dunwoody to a small town although it is amidst the hustle and bustle of Atlanta.

After the festival, we went home and the boys slept in their tent!



Our Wall of Thanksgiving.
Here, we wrote many of the things that we are most thankful for.



The boys' Thanksgiving placemats.

Thanksgiving Day- Bradford and the wishbone!

The Bradfords- Bradford and Uncle Brad

Hayes likes to hide under the table set for our Thanksgiving meal! We spent Thanksgiving with at Uncle Bob and Aunt Vicky's house in Athens.

We laughed and played with Uncle Brad, Aunt Alexis and Gram and Grandad!

Our Thanksgiving was one of gratitude, family traditions, and reflection on what the last year has blessed us with. We read and re-read books on Squanto, the Mayflower, and talked at length about the first Thanksgiving in order to help the boys understand what this special holiday is all about. We also spent a lot of time thinking about and recognizing what we were most thankful for and put those items on our Wall of Thanksgiving. The morning of Thanksgiving, before breakfast, we added the one item to the wall that we were most thankful for. Here is what they were:

Hayes- "God"

Bradford- "Hayes"

Jennifer- "God's amazing plan for our lives"

John- "My family"

We look to our future with excitement and look back upon the year with thankful hearts.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Mystery Reader





Who will the mystery reader be?

It's Jane Remsburg! (Bradford's Grandmommy!)

Bradford listening intently to the story

Jane has the class spellbound!

Thursday was our turn to the mystery reader for Bradfords' class at school! Being an educator herself, Jane jumped at the idea of being the mystery reader. So, here's how we pulled off the surprise. Jane and Raine got into town from North Carolina late Wednesday night after the kids were in bed and silently got settled in. They stayed in the guest room (well, there was one emergency coffee run when the coast was clear) until after we left for school. The end result of all of our sneaking around: Bradford was so surprised!

While I know that Jane used to teach before she had John and Jeff and am aware of her accolades earned while teaching at very prestigious schools, I truly became aware of her tremendous talent as a teacher. She is truly gifted. She told the story of the pilgrims so clearly and so full of notable details that would help the story stick in a young childs mind. With her voice full of animation and passion for what she was doing, she captivated for twenty full minutes an audience of 12 five year olds.

She was magnificent and will be a hard act to follow! Thank you, Jane, for all of your time spent preparing for the reading time and for traveling six hours to Georgia for this!
It was worth it, don't you think?

Here are a few more pictures of the day:





Paci-Fear

Don't worry, this image frightened me too.

Hayes is addicted to really likes his pacifier. You can image my fear when I turned around and saw this! Here, he is pictured with his two favorites, the green one and the blue one, respectively of course.

He has taken loving his pacifier to a whole new level now...and it's time to change.

So, we've been trying to figure out how to break this habit and came up with the following:

1) A Pacifier Party
I recently explained this idea to my mother-in-law.
Me (with much excitement in my voice): "We'll have a pacifier good-bye party! We'll have cake and ice cream and then round up all the pacifiers. Then, we'll tie them to balloons and let the pacifiers fly away!"
My Mother-In-Law (suppressing laughter): "That sounds (pause) interesting. Please don't do that without me. I wouldn't want to miss Hayes' reaction to his pacifiers floating away on balloons."

2) The Pacifier Fairy:
The fairy will come at night and take away all of the pacifiers and leave a cool toy in their place.

3) Disapearing Pacifiers
The pacifiers will simply "disapear" on the eve of Hayes' 3rd birthday (which is in less than a month)... because three year old's don't have pacifiers, right?

I tried prepping Hayes on the latter idea.
Me: "Hayes, did you know that three year olds don't have pacifiers?"
Hayes: Looks at me suspiciously while sucking fervently on his paci (the green one to be exact.)
Me: "Do you know any three year olds that have pacifiers?"
Hayes: "Yes!"
Me: (Astonished, because I certainly don't): "Who?"
Hayes: "ME!"

This is going to be interesting....

Darling Hayes, you make life so much more fun! We wouldn't trade your spunk for anything!

House Tour: Part Two

Upstairs hallway: Picture wall at the top of the stairs

Master bedroom

Fireplace in master bedroom. Does anyone recognize this? It used to be in our living room in Virginia!

Master bath

Hayes' "big boy" room (as he calls it)

Hayes' story chair

Bradford's room
(not pictured are his drums and keyboard that he plays on his top bunk while looking at himself in the dresser mirror.)

Bradford's room

The jack and jill bathroom that the each boys room opens up to.
(The door that you see opens to Hayes' room and this picture is taken from the doorway opening to Bradford's room.)

The guest room (for multiple guests- the daybed has a trundle bed underneath! :)  )

The guest bathroom (for those of you visiting me soon, it is a full bath!)



Stairs leading to the basement



John's office

Art nook in the playroom

The playroom

The boys' desk area

Dress up area in the playroom

Guess what is hidden in these closets? Toys! Our playroom feels so much less cluttered now!

Garage (the door leads into the kitchen)
I love this central center for coats, shoes , etc. Please ignore the peeling paint on the garage floor. I'm not sure what happened on that one....

Garage
I put this picture in to make you all smile, as you all know how much I love things organized!

Deck

The tree house

Swing set
(Look familiar? Yes, it is the same one from our yard in Virginia!)

Sandbox
A generous housewarming gift from my wonderful in-laws, Jane and Raine.

The  red chairs are the boys favorite spot for eating their afternoon snack.

Happy Fall!