Four Eyes

For a couple of months, I noticed that things were starting to look fuzzy and I was getting headaches. Surely I didn't need glasses. I got some glasses in high school just for long distances but never really wore them. I didn't notice a difference. So its been about 9 years since I've had my eyes checked.

2 weeks ago I decided it was time. I wasn't blind or anything, but things were definitely a little fuzzy. Sure enough, the doc said I needed glasses and have astigmatism in both eyes. The frustrating thing was when he said this "You will probably want to wear them all the time. But your prescription isn't strong enough to need contacts." What the heck? I have to wear these things on my face all the time but can't have contacts. Kinda frustrating. Soo...off I went to find some cute, stylish glasses so I would feel "cool and trendy" wearing them all the time.

And this is the result. What you can't see is that they are plum with turquoise all on the inside :)

I gotta say, I still don't wear them ALL the time. Partly, because Carson pulls them off my face. And partly because I'm just still not used to this. I don't know if I'm ready to be a full on glasses wearer. So I've been kinda wearing them as needed. They are more for distance anyways so I can make it without them if I'm reading, etc. But for the most part, they should PROBABLY be on my face. So if you haven't seen me in a while, meet the new me :)

The Coffee Monster

Friday nights have been unofficially our "Family Date Nights" for the past few months. We try to just spend the evening with the four of us either staying home playing games with the kids or going out to eat and doing something fun. Brody's all time favorite date night activity is going to the fountain on restaurant row to get ice cream and look at the fish.

Last night we decided we would go as a family to finish getting a couple of remaining Christmas gifts for family. We had dinner and then Matt suggested we run through Sweet Eugene's because he was craving a Snickers Latte. I was not going to argue with that.

We pull up in the drive thru and a girl with out of control curly hair comes to the window. Her hair was..how do I say this nicely...umm..just nasty. And everywhere. She had this beanie/toboggan/whatever on that had ears and like a wolf or something on it. That combined with the hair was quite a site. I kept these thoughts to myself, but as she walked away from the window, Brody said "SCARY!!" Matt and I busted out laughing because we were thinking the same thing. She came back to bring us our debit card, and when she left this time, Brody said "Monster!" He was on a roll. She gave us our coffee and as we left he said "Bye Coffee Monster."

Oh the honesty of a child. So people that work at coffee shops and choose to look like you haven't bathed  recently, this is what little children think of you!

Tis the Season {Part 2}

*This is a long post with lots of pictures. Just warning you.

We kicked off the season on Monday, November 29 by decorating the house. We invited 2 sweet girls from our Hope Group over to have dinner and help us. Unfortunately, Aselle was swamped with school so Beth came alone. We baked cookies that afternoon and she got to see my non baking skills. It was quite funny. And all I was doing was using a box mix and cookie cutters. Nothing too difficult here people.

We cooked dinner together, played with the kids and when Matt got home he unloaded the boxes from the attic. With Mariah Carey Christmas (duh!) playing on the ihome and White Christmas (my all time fave Christmas movie) in the dvd player, the house slowly transformed. It was fun watching the tree slowly go up and how excited the boys were. They were such helpers to Daddy and Carson even danced around the room he was so excited. We ended up getting a later start than planned so we only got to the lights that night. By the end of the night, we had stockings hung, winter dishes on the shelves and the others packed away, and the tree up with lights strung.  Oh, and the star on the tree bc that was Brody's special job before he went to bed.

Beth helping the boys hang their stockings.

 Carson getting ready to start his happy dance.

Carson mid happy dance. I wish you could see his face!

 The boys giving daddy a high five for putting up the tree.

 Trying to help.

Beth helping me unpack my winter dishes. I get so excited when these come out. And bc they are winter and not just Christmas dishes, I can use them through January :) 

One of my favorite parts of White Christmas. *Matt said to note that he did not watch this movie and had no part this shot being on the blog.

Carson enjoying the Nativity Scene. 

Brody was so proud of himself for putting the star on the top. He had been waiting all evening for this moment.

I finished decorating the tree the next day during naptime. I tried doing it with the boys but it just didn't work. Brody hung a couple but decided he would rather do other things. Carson just decided it was way more fun to take them all off and watch them crash down to the floor. We've already had a couple of casualties. 

 I think we need to rearrange our stocking colors.   

I got a lot of my ideas for this year's decorations and new traditions from Kirby's post last year. I decided to try to make the Christmas Family Photo Frames. Basically you deco podge frames with either wrapping paper or Christmas scrapbook paper and put family Christmas photos in them from each year. I couldn't find a picture of just Matt and I from our first Christmas. And our second I was big and pregnant and probably never took pictures. We did take one that was on our Christmas card from that year but I can't find it. So I decided to start with the first year we had kids. So I only created 2 this year. Each year I will make a new frame and add the previous year's Christmas photo. I am excited about this fun new element of our holiday decor! I will say though that this was not as easy as I thought it would be. I think I'm just not as good at this stuff as I thought I was or hope to be. But overall, I'm super happy with how they turned out. Beth was a great cheerleader and motivated me to keep going bc I was ready to throw them in the trash! 

Apparently the Apels have more influence on our holiday that I ever knew! A few years ago, they gave us this elf so we could start our own "move the elf game." I don't know what's it actually called but that's what we call it. You set the elf out at Christmas and its never mentioned. When you see it, you just move it to a new spot when no one is looking. It has to be in plain sight and in the living room. I forgot I had put it out on Carson's stocking and noticed this morning that it was in the fruit bowl on the bar. So I moved it here. And when Matt notices, it moves again. So if you come over, join in on the fun! 

Some activities we have planned for December:

Expedition Express to go look at Christmas Lights (again, copied from the Apels. Sorry, they just have really good ideas and children that are a year ahead of ours so they are a great resource! I can't wait to make some golden tickets!)

Watching Christmas Movies

Making Graham Cracker Houses (not a fan of gingerbread)

Making a Christmas Card Prayer Box..so send us a Christmas card so we can pray for you all through next year!

Baking gifts for our neighbors

Birthday Cake for Jesus (Brody talks about this one all the time and asks when we can make it!)

And a few other surprises that I don't want to spoil! 

We are very excited to start celebrating this Christmas season with our children. We love seeing how excited they get by seeing the tree, the stockings and talking about Jesus' birthday. Come celebrate with us all month long! We have lots of fun things planned and you are welcome to join us! 

Tis the Season {Part 1}

Everywhere you look on the web, blog posts are popping up about Christmas. Well-known bloggers as well as small time, stay at home moms like me, are blogging about Christmas decor and traditions. Its just that time of year. Everyone is getting excited to celebrate the coming season. Our houses are adorned with trees and wreaths and the stockings are hung.

But something else I've noticed as I read all these blogs and sites..and its only because they are all Christians....everyone is remembering the real reason we celebrate.

Jesus.

Its so easy to get caught up in the decorating and shopping. I'm not gonna lie, I absolutely LOVE IT! I love the feeling of my home with cinnamon candles burning, lights twinkling, and the Little People Nativity strewn across my living room floor. [We believe in a "hands on" approach to learning the story of Jesus' birth :) ]

But there's so much more to it than that. We want our children to know the TRUE meaning of Christmas. That God sent His one and only Son into the world. That He came to save us from our sins. He died on the cross and rose on the third day. That all the other things are just fun ways we use to celebrate Christ and that we want to incorporate Christ into all those things..from decorating to gift giving.

This is the first year that Brody actually understands all these things. So this year it was SUPER important to be sure to make sure the birth of Christ is at the forefront of our Christmas celebrations. So we found a few ways to have a daily reminder of why we are celebrating this month. We aren't doing an actual advent study so I found a few things to use to teach Brody this month.

Tools:
God Gave us Christmas Book
I stumbled across this book at Toys R Us on Black Friday and really love what it has to say.

Big Picture Story Bible
Brody loves reading this Bible in general, but he always goes to read about "Baby Jesus" all throughout the year.

Coloring Pages
The site looks weird at first, but if you scroll down, there are links to print coloring pages that tell the story of Christ's birth. They also include the corresponding scripture.

Today, being December 1, was the first day we started. We read the "God Gave us Christmas" book, and then read a few pages in his Bible to begin the story. I got my Bible and we talked about God's promise of a savior (Isaiah 7:14) and how the angel told Mary she would have a child. (Luke 1:26-38) Since his attention span is short and I want him to actually remember the story, we stopped there and colored a picture of Mary with the Angel. While we colored we talked about who Mary was and what the angel was telling her in the picture. It was so sweet hearing his little voice tell the story back to me.

Tomorrow (and the rest of the month) we will review the previous day's story and add on to it until we get through the entire birth of Christ. I have coloring pages for each major part of the story to really help him see it all. Today he absolutely loved the time we spent doing this so I'm looking forward to sharing this with him the rest of the month!

Santa:
We decided that we aren't doing Santa. We don't judge anyone that does or think that you are wrong for "doing Santa." And we aren't telling our children that Santa is bad. To them, Santa will just be another make believe character like Lightning McQueen and Buzz Lightyear.  When the little bear in "God Gave us Christmas" mentions Santa, his mother explains to him first of all that Christmas isn't about Santa, but also that Santa was originally known for generosity and care. That's supposedly who St. Nicholas was and if that's true, there's no problem in thinking that there used to be a really nice man who helped the poor and cared for the needy. But we all know that's not who the modern day Santa is. We just feel that Santa puts so much emphasis on receiving gifts. Yes, our children are getting gifts for Christmas. But we don't want that to be the focus. Christmas gifts aren't a reward for being "good little boys and girls" like the songs about santa say. Jesus was given to us without strings attached. He was God's gift to the world to save us from our sins. You should read these posts here and here if you are questioning the "Santa" thing yourself.

If you're worried we're going to ruin Christmas for your children, don't worry. Its not like we go around telling little kids that Santa isn't real. And Brody doesn't even understand who Santa is this year so he won't be ruining it for your kids in the preschool. He's been asked by sweet sales ladies if he's ready for Santa and he just nods, clueless to who this Santa person is. He has seen pictures in ads or out and about and he calls him Christmas Man. Which then sparks the perfect opportunity to talk about Christ and Christmas.

Coming up...Tis the Season {Part 2}...Pictures of our Christmas decor and stories of decorating our house with 2 small boys.

Silhouette Giveaway

*Sorry, I had to re-post bc I forgot to link to the sites.

I normally don't post these on here...but this is a good one. And one that I really want.

I'm in love with Kara's Party Ideas. My friend Kristin referred me to her site and now its in my reader so I can see what new party ideas she's featuring. I found Brody's birthday party idea on this site and can't wait to put it all into action in January.

Well, she is hosting a giveaway for this amazing craft cutter..the Silhouette. If you know what at Cricut is, its similar, but doesn't use cartridges. To me, that's amazing! You can just create something on the computer and have it print to the Silhouette and voila! You have a piece of art! Cute shapes for crafts and cards, print out a word on vinyl to stick on your wall, I could go on and on and on with the many uses of this.

So I'm blogging this so that I can get another entry into the giveaway :) So you should go enter to!!

Changing Seasons

After 3 years, I am saying goodbye to something I dearly love.  Something that has taught me so much, grown me and even changed me. Something that has been such a blessing to my family. Something that will never leave me and will always be a part of me. But after June of next year, I will no longer be a photographer. 

Earlier this fall, the Lord laid it on my heart to stop shooting professionally. At first I thought I was just overwhelmed with all the editing and that once things slowed down I would change my mind. But things slowed down. And nothing changed. I still had this overwhelming feeling that we were supposed to stop. And just in case I wouldn't listen, God told Matt the same thing. So it was pretty clear to us that we should stop booking weddings and just fulfill the commitments we had already made to people.

Over the next few weeks it became very apparent to me how much I wanted to stop shooting. I wanted to be able to give my children my full attention all day. And I wanted nap time to consist of housework or fun crafts and projects.Things that other moms were getting to do. Not full of being stressed out by high maintenance brides, editing photos and designing wedding albums. 

We had 4 wedding contracts for 2011 and 3 verbal commitments. I was thinking that 7 was a lot, but had already committed to these people and couldn't back out. Soon, we found out that all 3 of the girls who hadn't actually signed a contract had either found someone else or just never got back in touch with me. So now we only have 4 weddings next year! Who would have thought I would ever be so excited about someone NOT choosing me to shoot their wedding? Just more proof that we were making the right decision and God was leading us this direction. 

For so long I've been known as Larra aka wife, mom and photographer. I can't even describe how excited I am to drop the photographer off the end of my title. Its not like I am this super start amazing photographer. There are waaayyy more talented people. But its something that I got pretty good at and provided things for my family when we needed them. Like 2 sets of expensive leg braces for Brody boy. And a big start to a downpayment for our next house. Things that would have taken us years to save up for or pay back. 

I am so thankful to the Lord for this talent and for allowing it to be a big part of my life for a few years. There are seasons in life and they come for a while and then change. I'm starting a new season of life now. A season that includes a camera by my side at all times. But the subjects through my lens will be 2 precious little boys and their daddy, family Christmas parties, my sweet nieces and nephews, our family, our friends. Our everyday life. And no one will ever have to pay me to capture those precious moments. Moments that I won't miss by being distracted or pulled away by a girl in a big white dress. 

Oh Yes I Did...

turn this on today.

I'm all high tech now and have it in my itunes. No need to bust out the age old CDs. So while I'm cooking dinner for our church potluck tonight, I'm jamming to Mariah Carey Christmas. I post about this every single year. Because its my all time fave Christmas CD. The girl has some pipes. 

I know its only November. And don't worry, I'm not forgetting about Thanksgiving that is next week. But this time of year just gets me so excited about the coming season. The time to celebrate Christ's birth. I hope to have another post in the next few weeks about our Christmas crafts and traditions. 

But I just thought you all should know that I'm already listening to Mariah. In my mind, once Mariah is playing, its Christmas time!! 

MRI Update

I wish I had some cute stories about this trip to Temple. But it was fairly uneventful. And I guess that's probably a good thing sometimes. We made it right on time..we were cutting it close because I was starving and had to stop and get lunch on the way. So then the whole drive over I was frantic, thinking we were going to be late. But we made it right at 12:30. Of course all that didn't really matter because they didn't bring us back until after 1. Gotta love that. We talked to the sedation nurse and she went over the IV process with us. She said she was going to get her supplies and when she came back we were going to get started. We were under the impression that when she inserted the IV that they were going to go ahead and give him the sedation medicine.

And we were wrong.

We held him while they inserted the IV and she taped it all up so the cords weren't hanging. She injected some liquid into it so we thought that was the dopey meds. I asked how long it would take for him to fall asleep. She said "Oh, this is just something to keep the IV from clotting. The dr is going to come in and talk to you about the sedation before we do that."

Little did they know, this was not the best course of action. Brody is a champ at getting his blood drawn, needles poked in him, etc. But having to leave that thing in his arm was not an option to him. He was not happy about it at all. We were pretty frustrated that they didn't just wait to do that until the dr had talked to us and we were ready to do it all at once. He was crying and trying to pull it out while we waited for the doctor. We finally got him to calm down by blowing up a rubber glove and tying it off and acting like it was a chicken. We looked like a couple of nuts in that room, but it was all worth it.

When the doctor came, Matt took Brody in the hall so I could hear her talking. When Matt and Brody came back in, Brody showed me that he was Buzz Lightyear with his IV in his arm. He was pointing his arm out and shooting lasers like Buzz. A few seconds later, the doctor injected the sedation medicine in the IV. And a few seconds after that, Brody was out. He went from talking about Buzz, to his eyes rolling, to his head slumped on Matt's shoulder all in about 10 seconds. It was quite humorous, yet scary  how fast it worked.

They took him away to the MRI and we waited for an hour. When we were brought back to see him after, he was still sound asleep on the stretcher. When he woke up about 20 minutes later, it was like he woke up from a nap and never knew he had been in a drug induced sleep. The whole drive home he was happy and talkative.

This was such an answer to prayer. I was more concerned about the sedation than anything else. And it went smoothly and he wasn't phased by it.

And what you're all waiting to hear....we got the MRI results today...and they were perfectly normal!! Praise God! So this means there is nothing in his back like a tumor or mass that is preventing his nerve signals from being sent to his legs.

So what's next? More waiting and testing. We're trying to get the nerve conductive study (where they sedate him again and shock his nerves) scheduled. Until then..we wait and pray.

Prayer for Today: Brody's MRI

We are headed to Temple today for Brody's Spinal MRI. They want to check to see if there is anything blocking the nerve signals from being sent to his legs correctly. He will be sedated and then the MRI will last about 2 hours. Here are the prayer points I sent to our hope group.

-His cooperation as they administer the IV

-Safety for him while he is sedated

-For Matt and I as we wait. Its scary to have your little 2 year old under anesthesia

-Wisdom for the doctors as they look at the results

-That everything would come back normal

-He had to stop eating at 7:30am today. He can only have clear liquids (water, gatorade, apple juice) up until 11:30 and then nothing until after the test. So when he wakes up around 4 or so later today, he's going to be starving. Pray that he understands what we explain to him about not being able to eat and that we have patience with him if he gets upset because he's hungry at lunch time. 

Thank you friends for your faithful prayer throughout this process. You make it so much easier to get through all these things! I'll update you with results as soon as we have them!

These are a few of my favorite things

Its been a while since I've posted. And even longer since I've posted anything fun. So I thought I'd do a fun post with random pics and moments from life over the last month. Enjoy!

Moments:

-When Carson toots, he squats down, grabs his diaper and says "poo-poo!"

-Carson is talking a lot. Check out some of the new words he's added to his vocab on the All About Carson page.

- Me: "Brody, who is your best friend?" Brody: "Carson Jace!"

-We decided to wait until we got some answers from the doctors before we tried to potty train again. At the last appointment, the dr told us that his muscle weakness could definitely be affecting his potty training. So we're waiting a short while longer before trying again. However, every time we change his diaper, we talk about how he will be such a big boy when he tee-tees on the potty and wears underwear and we talk about his friends that are potty trained. Now, every time he lays down to be changed, he immediately says "Tee-tee on the potty like a big boy like Shane and Aaron and Cole and Daddy and Mommy and..... He names just about everyone we know.
-Brody calls Carson "Monster." He just gave him that nickname all on his own. He'll go through the house looking for him saying "Monster, where are you? Monster Carson, where are you?"

October in Photos
My Little Monsters soaking in the last few days of Summer:

Precious Brody Boy. Poor guy..I think we're gonna need braces.

Little Sluggers

We had a church community picnic and Brody got his face painted. 

He chose a football and ATM for the Aggie Game Day.  

Their newest obsession is Daddy's hats. They wear them around the house all the time, especially Carson. He will find one, put it on backwards and spend an afternoon in it. Its soo adorable. 

Here Carson is working on his saw em off sign. 

We had a dress up party at Hope Group and the boys went as 50's Greasers.

The Journey Continues

This past Friday, Oct 1, we went back to Temple for our first follow up appointment with Dr. Blazo, the genetics doctor. On the drive over, Brody kept practicing her name. It was so cute. He wanted to be able to say "Hi" to her when she came in the room. So at 11am when she walked in the room, he stopped playing with the cars and excitedly said "Hi Dr. Blazo!" He was so proud of himself.

We talked first with Dr. Blazo about the results of the tests they had done at our appointment 2 months ago. I can't believe how fast that time flew by. In the last post I didn't go into detail about they tested for. But, since both test results came back NEGATIVE here's what they were: Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) and Charco-Marie-Tooth, 2 types of nerve diseases (as we understand it). We were overjoyed to hear that the SMA test came back negative. That one seemed to be more of a serious condition. And of course we were still relieved to hear that the CMT was negative as well, although that one seemed to not be as serious.

So although we had good news, we were left with no answers. And Dr. Blazo even said this. "I have to be honest with you. I don't know what is going on and think he needs to be seen by a neuro muscular disease specialist." She said that there are specialists who only work on diagnosing patients with rare neuro muscular diseases that aren't showing up on the usual blood tests, which seems to be what may be going on with our Brody. She said she wanted to get on the phone with the neurologist and talk some options over with her since we didn't have an appointment with her that day.

We waited for a while in the room and she came back with good news. She said that Scott and White had actually just hired the exact specialist we needed and we would not have to go to Houston, unless this doctor recommended it. She also said that she and the neurologist agreed on some other testing that he needed. Testing that they were trying to avoid. An invasive painful procedure that will require sedation. But doing this test should tell them what area to focus on, either the nerves or the muscles.

The test will send electricity through Brody's arms and legs, and based on the way the nerves react, they would know if its a nerve problem. And if the muscles react a certain way, they'll know its a muscle problem. It seems that since the last 2 tests were negative, they feel this is the best way to send us in the right direction. Without it, we could waste a lot of time (& money) testing for the wrong things. And seeing how long it takes to get results, we don't really want to waste that time.

While he is sedated, they are also going to do a spinal MRI to make sure there isn't anything blocking the signals from being sent from his spine to his legs.

AND...they want to do an echocardiogram on him to make sure that his heart looks fine. If its a muscular problem, there is a chance that it could affect his heart since his heart is a muscle. So although is heart sounds great, they don't want to overlook anything. We are setting this up locally with Dr. Ransom.

So over the next month, our little guy is going to go through a lot. Lots of testing. Lots of things he doesn't understand. He has been such a trooper through all of it. I can't even imagine having to wear these uncomfortable leg braces, constantly going to doctor appointments, having people poking and prodding at me constantly. But he takes it in stride.

There's more to this story...an exciting part. We talked about therapy with Dr. Blazo as well. She said he needs to be in some sort of therapy at least once a week, even though we have no diagnosis. She highly recommended hippotherapy, also know as therapeutic horseback riding. I've always heard of special needs children riding horses, partly for physical rehabilitation and also for the peaceful side of it. But I never thought of it being something that would help Brody. Dr. Blazo explained how it requires them to use their hips to balance and they have to use their legs to squeeze, kick, etc. I rode horses a lot when I was younger so it all made sense to me.

So we're checking into a couple of places around town that provide riding lessons as well as work with him as therapy. We know that he's going to be scared at first. He likes big animals from afar, but up close he's not a huge fan. But I really think that if he would give it a chance he would really enjoy it. A lot more than the physical therapy we attempted.

So these are the next steps. Hopefully we're getting closer to learning what is going on with our Brody Boy. We are continuing to pray for complete healing and we know that God can do anything. We know he is going to use this for His glory, whatever the test results show.

He Likes to Move it, Move it!

Carson is officially a walker. Its weird to be typing those words. This is a new phenomenon in our house. To have a child go through the normal progression of learning to walk between 13-14 months. Its so exciting for us!

Carson started taking steps around his birthday and over the last 2 months has progressed from 5-6 at a time, to 20 at a time, to now walking all over the house! It's insane! He absolutely loves to walk around, pick things up and put them back down. I think we get most excited when we see him go down into a deep squat and get something, or even just squat down and stay there. This is something that unfortunately, Brody still can not do. So its something we knew to watch for with Carson. And it looks like he's doing great!

We made a fun little video set to music of Carson walking around the house. Warning: We realize that not everyone will think this is as cute as we do. Its only 4 minutes long but we won't be offended if you don't watch the whole thing. This is more for the grandparents and those that are as excited as we are about Car-Baby taking off!

Big Boy Bed

This post is a little out of order. The weekend before we went to the lake, we decided that Brody was ready for his toddler bed.

A lot of kids his age have already been in toddler beds for months. But Brody had never tried to climb out of his crib. His legs just weren't strong enough. So we saw no need to put him in a bed that we couldn't keep him in. Well, he finally started trying to climb out and would actually get stuck sitting up on the top, probably more dangerous than just climbing all the way out. Plus, we want our boys to share a room soon. And having Brody already in a bed that he can get out of when he wakes up without waking up Carson is a necessity. So it was definitely time to make this change and get him transitioned before we tried the shared room thing.

So on a Saturday morning we made the change. This wasn't just a matter of simply changing out a rail on the bed. You see, we didn't purchase the toddler rail for Brody's crib. And Carson's crib came with a toddler rail. And cribs don't fit through doors...we tried. So we had to dismantle each crib and swap rooms. It was a nice, family activity that took all morning...and into the afternoon. Because nothing is easily done when you have the eager help of a 2 1/2 year old and 1 year old.

The final product of all of Daddy and Brody's hard work

Meet the bed time entourage. All of these guys must be ready and waiting to ensure a good night sleep for Brody. There is Nemo, an otter, a horse, Tigger that he's had since he was a newborn, Buzz, and 3 blankets in that stack. If one is missing, he will ask for it until we find it. Just imagine what its like when we travel. These guys get their own bag. Its kinda ridiculous. 

I was actually really dreading this transition. I just knew that he would keep coming out of his room and would put up such a fight to take naps and go to bed at night. I had heard all these stories of kids who just refused to stay in their toddler beds in the beginning. And he completely surprised us. He's had his moments, but for the most part he's done great. I can actually only think of 1 time that's he's gotten out of bed at a nap. That doesn't mean that he doesn't cry to get up sometimes, but he never gets up without permission. And what's funny, he won't even come out after he wakes up. He'll call for one of us, just as he would when he was in a crib. So we're going to have to work on that before we try the shared room thing.

Brody Boy, you are growing up way too fast! Slow down a little, will ya? 

2010 Zoo Trip

We decided to head to the Waco zoo last Tuesday with Mimi. Brody loves animals and this year actually knows what things are so we thought he'd enjoy getting to go see some of them for real. Although Carson has no idea what anything is, we knew he'd be happy just getting to ride around outside in the stroller.

We got there soon after it opened so that it was still cool and hopefully animals would be out. What we didn't know was that it was "habitat work day." As in the day that half of the animals are back in the back somewhere while the workers clean and work on the cages, habitats, etc. It wasn't on the calendar. I'm thinking they should let people know these things. So we made the best of it and Brody got excited about the animals he did get to see. Brody's favorites were the rhino, giraffe and the fish. At least that's the favorites he says today. Tomorrow it may be the huge turtle (although he was terrified of it) and the lion. We were really sad that the otters weren't out because they have a slide that goes through the otter habitat and they are swimming above you. Brody asked for the otters the entire trip...so we had to buy a souvenir otter in the gift shop that he now sleeps with every night.

These were really close to us and Brody wasn't sure about them.

This is his opinion of the turtles.

Cute little Carson Butterfly.
Brody has this new aversion to pictures being taken of him so he refused this one.

They both loved the aquariums and kept pointing at everything.

Had to make sure we got a picture of Nemo.

And Dori. She really was the right color blue but my flash made her turquoise.

Brody in the Tee-Pee.
I caught him in a smile only because he was playing and happened to turn around excited.
*To the right of this tee-pee were the buffalo. When Brody was telling Matt about his trip to the zoo, he told him that monkeys were riding on the backs of the buffalo. What a nut!

We all loved the giraffe.

Carson's first horse back riding experience. 

He actually really enjoyed this although the photo doesn't appear that way. He was coming out of a laugh and had a funny face.

Caught him while he wasn't looking