Nathan is two!

Our little Nate turned two!  And what a cute two he is.  We just love him more every day.  He's got such a funny and cute personality.  He has no trouble keeping up with his big bro.  He can hold his own that's for sure.  He's sweet and compliant, yet feisty and determined.  We love him so much!

We had a fun party with our families.  He totally knew it was all for him, and was really excited.  He loved all the Mickey Mouse decorations.

 

We love watching you grow up, big boy!!  :)

Boys recently

The boys are cracking me up lately.  I can't even write down all the funny things they do and say.  So I have to go back to texts that I send David throughout the days of our happenings. 

"Nathan looked in the fridge and saw the pie and says, 'Look it!' and tried to open it.  He's going to sneak food out of the fridge when he gets older."

"Just went into Caleb's room this morning to get him up, and he was getting out of bed and yelled, 'No!  I have to go pee pee!'  I told him he could go, and I turned off his noise machine.  And he said, 'No!  I'm still sleeping!' So Nathan and I left, and he went pee, and went back to bed.  ??  Crazy kid."

"Dude.  Nathan can do Caleb's search and find book!"

"Bless you, Daddy!" - Nathan, when he heard David sneeze upstairs.

"We read Caleb's My Very Own Name book today, and Nathan said, 'Where's mine?'"  Poor younger child doesn't get as many personalized gifts.

"I asked Caleb today if he wanted to go to school, and he said no.  He said, 'I'm not bigger yet.  I just go to church.'"

And on a rough day with the boys, I texted David  "Lord, beer me strength."  - one of our most often used quotes from The Office.  David wrote back, "Sure you didn't mean, 'Lord, beer me beer?"  ha!


Some recent pics:

Enjoying their new Aggie hats.  A little big on them right now.

Cutie.

I often think Caleb may end up joining the circus someday.  He is such a monkey.  He climbs on things...especially David.  He'll say stuff like, "Daddy, can I jump off of you?"  "Daddy, I'm going to stand on your head."

I was switching out all of their clothes this week for the cooler weather coming, and to see what we need to buy for Caleb.  I found a bunch of 2T short-sleeved shirts for Nathan in a box.  So for the last couple days when we've gotten him dressed, Caleb will say, "I used to wear that shirt last year when I was a little boy."  It's funny that he remembers all his old clothes now because it was only a year ago he was wearing them.  Now that Nathan isn't in month-to-month sizes anymore, he and Caleb are just once year apart in sizes.  A lot of the winter stuff I just moved straight from Caleb's drawers to Nathan's drawers.
So last night Nathan put on Caleb's old Cars pajamas, and he LOVED them!  He knew they were big boy pajamas because they are loose in the legs, and he did a happy dance.  He kept looking at "McQueen" on his shirt.

Some days as a mom are crazy: correcting behavior, attending to needs, whining, crying, fights, sicknesses, squeezing in cooking, cleaning, and organizing...  But just as much, my days are filled with kisses, hugs, and laughs.  And on days like this, I feel like I have the best job in the world: just sitting at the park on a cool day and watching the boys happily play. 

Caleb buried himself in the sand, and probably played like that for 30+ minutes.

Sitting in the sand, they're pretending that Caleb is driving the van to the grocery store, and Nathan is sitting in the back.  I had to go get food from the store, and put it in the van.  They're so cute.

I said, "Let me take a picture of this silly boy."  So he gave me a silly face.

Inventing some sort of car/umbrella contraption.  :)

We went to the Children's Museum, and the boys had a blast!  It's like a little boy's paradise.  Lots of balls, levers, wheels and turny things, puzzles, experimenting...  They just ran from thing to thing.

 Caleb trying on a mask at Party City while we were picking up stuff for Nathan's birthday.

Nathan's birthday is next weekend.  And we'll also be finding out the gender of baby #3!!  Exciting!

Weekend Getaway - Brenham and College Station

David and I had a great 4-day weekend away recently.  He surprised me with a bed & breakfast reservation in Brenham, tickets to the A&M game, and coordinated with my parents to come watch the boys.  It was great!  It's probably going to be our last time away for awhile as we'll be having the baby soon, and I'll have to be attached for the next year or so.

We didn't have any major plans for the time away - mostly just rest, eat, and hang out.  And we did just that.  We had a few unfortunate incidents along the way, but it all ended up working out.  I was sick for a few days, but it was nice to be able to just rest and get lots of sleep in our room.  The room was very cozy, and was so much better than if we had stayed in a hotel.  And then the night before the A&M game, the window motor on David's car went out, and the window was stuck down.  Since there was a lot of rain expected, we decided to drive back to Houston on Friday night and switch cars.  We spent the night at our house, drove to College Station the next day, and then back to Brenham for one more night.  The nice part was that my parents and the kids followed us to College Station the next morning, and we all watched the Aggie Band and corps march into the stadium.  It was fun to be there with the whole family.

It's funny being in a small town.  It's really quiet.  There isn't much around, which was perfect for what we wanted to do!  We found out that the famous Round Top antique show was going on that week, and apparently most hotels and b&b's in the area were completely booked.  I've heard about Round Top before - which is just a little blip on the map - so we decided to drive by and take a look.  People from all around the country bring their antiques/furniture/random stuff and set up in miles of tents for two weeks.  It was interesting.  If we had planned on what to expect we maybe could have bought stuff, but you'd have to spend hours, and probably days, walking through all the stuff to find what you want.

 Our cute B&B

Front porch swing.

The breakfast area.

It's always funny to eat breakfast with a group of strangers.  A lot of the time they are sweet, old, rich southern people.  David is such a friendly person, he usually carries the conversation for us while I gobble up my food.  Just kidding.  I talk too, I just think it's cute how David can carry on conversations so well with strangers...I don't think it's most husbands' ideal situation.  But I like seeing that side of him.

They had homemade cookies in there for us every night.

Where they posted the menu.  It was so yum.

Our sitting area with comfy recliners.

The bed - a little messy, already slept in.  :)

We definitely ate our fill.  In Round Top someone recommended we go to this super cool hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Royer's Cafe.  David ended up meeting someone who worked there whose husband works for CBA.  Small world.  It's one of those places that is very eclectic and quirky, lots of famous write-ups and famous people all over the walls.  The menu was hilarious - written with a sense of humor.  Super unique food.  And super yummy pies.  We split the apple pie.

We took a tour of the Blue Bell factory, which was pretty cool!

And we got our scoop at the end.  I got Southern Blackberry Cobbler, and David got Praline Pecan.

Then we went to another hole-in-the-wall...but then I guess most places in Brenham are.  My mom showed us a write-up about Brenham in Texas Monthly, and they recommended this 50's diner next to the "Brenham Airport."  It was a small, private airport in the middle of nowhere.  I don't even know how anyone would know the restaurant is there.  They're known for their "hundred dollar burger" because they say people will pay $100 in gas to fly there to eat it.  I'm not sure it was the best burger I've ever had, but it was good, and maybe for Brenham it's the tops.  It was cute though because the waitresses wore poodle skirts, and there was a jukebox playing 50's music.

College Station.

Waiting im the rain for the Aggie band to march in.

I love this pic of Nathan doing his gig'em thumbs-up.  He's like, "Am I doing this right?"

The whole family in front of Kyle Field.

Ready for the game!

It was so fun!  The weather was perfect even though it rained for a bit.   

Muggin' down in Kyle Field.  It was a high-scoring game, so lots of chances to kiss!  Looks like we almost missed lips trying to multi-task and take a self-portrait.  :)

Afterward we ate at Cafe Capri - the place of our first date, and also the place we ate at the night we got engaged.  It was soooo yummy.

Then we came home to find these two cuties outside playing in the cool weather!  It's so nice to have parents who love to watch the kids while we get some nice time away.  And the boys love it too!

Laundry room redo

So as we make our "new" house home (we've been here a year!), our David's first major project was revamping the laundry room.  It's a small room, and it seemed doable for him since the boys and I were going to be out of the house for 4 days.  It's the entrance of the house going to and from the garage.  So we always come in that way and dump our stuff.  I'm in there a lot, and it wasn't very functional, or pretty.

Here is the before:

I showed him a few ideas off of Pinterest, and gave him a some guidelines, and he ran with it.  

So with a lot of planning, shopping, sweat and tears, and one all-nighter, David pulled off an amazing redo!!  I LOVE it!  He even spruced it up with decorative things like plants, baskets, candles, a frame, and other knick-knacks. 

It's is beautiful??  Now we have a bench, basket storage, hooks in a better place, still have a cabinet to hide stuff in, a nice flat and clean countertop, beautiful bead board, a new rug, and pretty wall color.  LOVE!!!  Thank you, David!