New bed!

Where has all the time gone? Where is the baby I had a short 3 years ago? My baby is not a baby anymore!
It was time our big boy got a big boy bed. I had so much fun doing his nursery before he was born. I painted the walls to match his cute bedding and I loved how it turned out. But his nursery was for a baby and he's not a baby anymore.

But since I spent so much time painting the planes, I wanted to leave those and just change some other things. He still likes the blue and green so we left those colors.

So we traded his cute crib and baby bedding in for a big boy bed and big boy bedding.

And we traded his special hand-made baby curtains in for some panels that I got at a steal in the clearance section of Target! (as well as a couple accessories to go with the colors)

It's kinda hard to take pictures of the whole room at once but you get the idea. I still want to add some more stuff but for now it's very cute. I think I want to paint those square shelves navy blue instead of white to make them pop a little more.

And he was so excited to go to sleep last night!

First night in the new bed........SUCCESS!

I settled on cupcakes

Brady's 3rd birthday is coming up. I really can't even believe that but it's here.

I asked him what kind of a party he would like this year. He told me he wanted a Buzz Lightyear party. So I was thinking, OK there must be tons of that kind of party stuff out there so that sounds fun.

Wrong! Party City had NONE! All the toys are out in the stores but nothing for birthday parties. Not even one single Toy Story Balloon!!! Apparently kids would rather have Jonas Brothers or High School Musical parties rather than Buzz Lightyear. Aren't the kids who like those things too old to have a birthday party with matching plates, cups, hats and streamers with faces on them anyway?????

I looked on the internet and found some so I ordered some stuff. That problem is solved. But apparently no grocery stores sell the Toy Story character cakes anymore. And I'll just admit that a cake decorator I am not. Well, not with a complex character like Buzz anyway. I looked on the internet for some ideas. Here's what I found:

Who are these Moms? They must moonlight as Disney bakers or something! It looks like those cake contests they have on the Food Network!

Even this one is beyond my abilities!

So that's why I decided to just make cupcakes again this year! I found some little Buzz party favors that can go on top and I bought some decorator sugar at the grocery store yesterday.

Here's Brady's 1st and 2nd birthday pics:

My friend Laura made the cake and I made the cupcakes to go with.

Again, cupcakes for his Lightening McQueen party last year.

Do we see a pattern here????

Oh well, Brady probably wouldn't care how my ugly cake would look or if the decorations were ones I printed off the internet and colored myself. Sometimes I feel like I need to make things perfect but it really doesn't matter and I know that. I'll try to get over it. I just think that he's my only child right now and I'm going to try and make it the best birthday for him. But really, one of the best parts of it all is that Grandma and Grandpa will be here to celebrate with him-he's really excited about that!

Why do I even bother?

So my sweet husband was home yesterday morning because he was flying that night. He cut his hair in our bathroom and cleaned up after himself. After that, he started cleaning the whole bathroom for me. Scrubbing the floors, the sink, the toilet (he didn't do the shower-he really doesn't like that at all) and I didn't even ask him to. So I cleaned the hall bathroom (minus the tub because I figured I would have to clean them both today anyway).

So this morning, Brady gets up. And he had to go to the bathroom. I tell him to remember to put the seat up and point in. It's a very funny sight to see a cute little boy standing on his tippy toes just to get it pointed in the toilet (is this too graphic?).

But this morning, it was not so cute. I hear "uh-oh" come from the bathroom. Uh-oh from any room is not a good sign but the bathroom....uh oh!
I go in there and see the mess he is uh-ohing about. Seriously??? I just cleaned the bathroom yesterday!! Needless to say, the toilet and floor were cleaned again today. I have to clean up smaller messes all the time but somehow it just seems wrong for a big mess to happen on newly cleaned surfaces.

Don't you agree?

Why do I even bother??

Something you don't want to hear when you first wake up

So after Brady woke up this morning I was still in bed trying to force my eyes to open enough to drag myself out. I stayed up way too late last night. Aaron had an early flight this morning and it seems on those nights when he goes to bed early, I go to bed too late.
Brady comes to me in the bed and says "Mommy, there's something you don't want to see in the living room."

OK, that made me open my eyes!

Me: Brady, what did you do in the living room?
Brady: Um, nothing Mommy.
Me: Then why don't I want to see it?
Brady: Um, I made a drawing with my snot on the floor......and the couch.
Me: Ew! Why did you do that?
Brady: Because I needed a kleenex.
Me: Then why didn't you get one?
Brady: Because I made it with my finger. Come see.

So now he wants me to see it.
Yeah, it was gross! I'm just glad now that we paid the extra $70 when we bought our couch to have a protective coat put on it for easy cleaning and stain repellent.

Too bad he forgot where he drew on the floor. Now I'll never see that work of art!
(Aren't you glad I didn't post pictures with this?)

Happy New Year!!!!

We are back from our Christmas vacation and are starting another year here in AZ. Where did 2009 go? We had a pretty good year with a couple bumps in the road but I'm hoping that our 2010 will bring us health and happiness and I hope it does for you as well!

You'll have to check out our 4 new posts below about our trip. Warning: there are a LOT of pictures! Sorry, it's Christmas!

Christmas with the Purcells

On the day before Chrismtas Eve (Christmas Eve Eve?) my whole family got together for our Christmas at my sister's house. Here's some pictures from the day:

Brady, Ava and Sadie before opening presents

Here's one of my Christmas sewing projects for the kids: aprons. Ava's is of course girly, flowered and stripes and Brady picked out his own fabric (without knowing what it was for) and he picked the manly Thomas the Train. They turned out really cute!

Here's Aunt Amanda helping Ava and Brady wrap presents for their Mommies and Daddies that they picked out at the Dollar Store with my Mom. Grandma said the shopping trips were quite the experience! But it was so cute to see how excited they got about picking out presents and being able to give them to us!

Here's me and my siblings. We haven't all been together in a long time. From age order top to bottom: me, Melissa, Amanda, Matt

Here's the whole family together. Usually when we all get together there is someone always missing, but this time everyone is here!

Top row (left to right): Gary (Amanda's boyfriend), Hadley (bro. in law) , my Dad, Aaron, Matt

Bottom row: Amanda, Melissa with Ava, my Mom with Sadie, me with Brady and Sherri (sis in law)

Isn't my sweet niece Sadie so cute with her fuzzy baby duck hair?

Me and Amanda with our niece Sadie

My Mom with Ava and Brady reading their Christmas story in their Christmas jammies

The boys had to clean up all the dishes after our Christmas meal! Aaron doesn't look too happy about that!

On Christmas Eve we usually travel to Joliet/Chicago for our extended family Christmases. Our first stop is to my Dad's family. Here's us with my Grandma.

Then, we go to Chicago to my Aunt's house for my Mom's family Christmas. It's been a tradition as long as I can remember going that someone plays Santa and hands out presents to all the kids there (that their parents pack in the bag before hand of course!). Every year, someone different plays Santa. Aaron has played Santa a couple times before we had Brady. Some people are counted out because they have children that might recognize them or nieces or nephews or whoever. This year must have been one of those years because instead of the usual man to play Santa, my Uncle Rick's sister, Eva, played Santa. She was a hoot and the little kids didn't even notice!

I guess Santa is not partial to gender or nationality either because they are originally from the Dominican Republic. So a Dominican Woman was Santa in our family Christmas. It's always such a good time there!

We spent a couple more days with my family and here's Brady and Ava doing a "project" that Aunt Amanda gave Ava for Christmas. Ava is all into her "projects" lately and this one was perfect for a 2 year old since it involved crumpling and sticking on tissue paper to a sticky pattern. Good choice Amanda!

Christmas with the Grays

We always spend Christmas Day with the Gray family. Here's a couple of the pics that I took. (There were a lot more but my computer was being slow and I couldn't upload any more at the moment.)

How many guys does it take to set up a wooden train track?? :)

Brady got a Thomas set from "Santa". He had been telling everyone what he wanted Santa to bring him and his answer was always "A train and tracks." so that's what he got!

Brady did this with several of his presents. I guess he really loved them!

These were the most exciting and unexpected gifts of the day! All the boys got some warm winter hats from Mom Mom. Aaron's was green to match his flight suit, Mike's was navy blue, John's was like a tweed pattern (to match his dress coat for work?) and Chad's was of course camoflouge. We all laughed so hard when they opened them and wore them!

Here's the cute little snow bunny in her new hat. What you can't see is her cute little pregnant belly under that box!
We had great Christmas with them as always! Brady is definitely the center of attention here. We also told Brady that he is getting a new little cousin soon but right now she's still in Aunt Lauren's belly. We're all so excited about that and so is Brady. He even told my sister and Mom that his new cousin was in Aunt Lauren's belly when we went back to see them again. We can't wait for cute little Baby B to arrive!