Daddy's little helpers

The boys received new shovels from Santa for Christmas. They love to go out and help daddy, which has already been a few times. Daddy says Brady is a really big help. Isaac mostly just goes out to play in the snow.



Isaac however is a big help putting the garbage bin away after the truck came this morning.

Christmas Day 2008

The boys received a few new train toys. Above they are opening up a new train track that winds around. Isaac calls it the roller coaster track because it goes around in a circle. Below they got a couple more additions to the track. One was a tunnel and the other was a cargo loading area.


Christmas Day was a little more quiet. We opened our gifts in the morning and had time to play with some of them. Then we all got dressed and headed over to the Neuser's for the annual Christmas day luncheon. This is the chance when we get to see all of the Uncles, Aunts, cousins, etc in one place. Unfortunately, not all of them get to come, which is probably a good thing because the house isn't big enough to hold them ALL!! But, we did get to see quite a few of them and it is always nice.

Christmas Eve 2008

I didn't get a whole lot of pictures from Christmas this year. Christmas eve night was really busy. We went to Grandma and papa's first to share Christmas with them. Here, Isaac is counting how many presents he wants.
After we opened gifts and ate dinner, we left to go to Uncle Kevin's house to meet up with the Smits. Fortunately, they were all waiting for us to get there to do the girl Christmas gift exchange. Because we got there so late, we weren't able to visit with the family very long before many of them left. But it was nice seeing everyone the little while we had.

I'm back

Hello everyone

Sorry, it has been so long since my last post. I've been pretty busy lately and every time I was trying to do a post, I was having issues with uploading pictures. I think that has been fixed now, so hopefully I will be able to do some more posts.

Since it has been so long since I've posted, I figured I would just post a few pictures from Halloween. It was such a beautiful days for Trick or Treaters in our area. I think the temperature was around 70 degrees. It was almost too warm for what the boys were wearing. Brady was a pumpkin and Isaac was Eeyore. They really had a great time this year and had fun going from door to door collecting their treats. Shawn stayed home to hand out candy at our house, while I went with the boys.


I will post some more updates later today or tomorrow.

Myrtle Beach Vacation

The boys did wonderful during our ride out there. We left about 8 pm Friday night and arrived I think around 5 pm Saturday afternoon. The boys did a lot of sleeping on the ride which really helped the drive. We drove straight through as usual. Don't know how much longer we are going to be able to do that. It gets harder and harder I think for Shawn to stay up all night to do that. This time around it helped that Shawn was able to take a nap before hitting the road so he felt pretty good the entire trip. We usually split the drive up into about 3-4 shifts. I take the first shift and try to drive through Chicago or as far past it I can get. This time I made it about half way to Indianapolis. Then Shawn takes the night shift until about 7 am. We usually stop for breakfast and then I drive through the mountains. Then we stop somewhere in South Carolina, and Shawn drives the rest of the way to the condo.

The weather was great. When we first got there, the temperatures were in the high 80s, low 90s and humid. About mid week, a cool front had gone through and the temperatures were in the high 70s, low 80s, but still beautiful weather. We only had one afternoon of rain.

The boys really loved the water. I had bought some floats for their arms last year at the end of the trip and brought them along for this year's trip. The first real day in the water I had gotten them out for the boys to use. Brady really took fast to the idea of swimming and is really quite a natural at it. Isaac was a little more cautious about the whole thing. Isaac however was the first one to walk from the zero entrance area over to the steps which were in just over 3 feet of water. Shortly after that, Brady started getting a little more daring and realized that the floats would keep him afloat so then he would start walking over that way without my help.

Within about an hour of being in the water, Brady was completely trusting the floats and kicking his legs to swim. Grandma had also bought the boys inflatable rings as well, so I blew those up and let the boys float in them. With the help of the rings, Brady flew through the water. Isaac again was a little more cautious about it all, but towards the end of the trip he was going all over the pool without the help of anyone.

I will try and get pictures up as soon as I can. I'm having difficulties getting them to upload.

Guess what?

Isaac went on the potty for the first time in months!! He actually said he had to go potty and then daddy put him on the toilet and he went. He came out of the bathroom and said I went pee, but I didn't fully believe him until daddy confirmed it. Now, let's see if he continues on with it. Yeah Isaac! He was so proud of himself too.

Just some pics

Here are just some pictures I was taking today of the boys. Hope you enjoy.Remember when they just used to fit in the window opening of this thing?

Cute

Just before bedtime while I was trying to get the boys ready, I had gone downstairs to get something, and when I came back up. I found the boys like this.I don't know what it is about the picture above, for some reason Brady just looks a lot older. Maybe it is the heals. :) I love it, they are wearing daddy's hat, but my shoes. Such fun.

This picture I just had to post too because they look so cute and it was a good picture.

Just relaxin'

I was just finishing up putting all the toys away from the front yard so that the boys would go back in the house for the night when I came back outside, I found this. Brady was just chillin in his chair.

Brady's Back pack

Before we left the house to go up north, Isaac discovered a back pack that was in the boys' bedroom closet. I told him to fill it up with toys and we would bring it up north. Well, Brady found it and he fell in love with it right away. He wore it on his back most of the weekend. Here he is modeling it for you.

First real ATV ride

This weekend we went up north to the grandparent's cabin in Lakewood. While we up there, Isaac got his first ride on the ATV. He LOVED every minute of it and never wanted to come off. I can see that cousin Collin is going to have to fight Isaac for the little machine in a few years. Brady also took a ride on it, but he wasn't as excited about it as Isaac. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of daddy with Brady because he didn't want to go on the ATV after his first time and I didn't have the camera handy when he did ride it.

New addition to the Smits clan

Today at the annual Mike and Patti Smits booyah party, we got to meet the newest member of the family. This is Delaney Smits with her parents Jason (my cousin) and Crystal. She was about 3 weeks old in this picture and just as cute as a button. Boy, was she petite though. She was born weighing 4lbs, 12 oz, but in this picture she was about 6 lbs. I can't hardly believe my boys were ever that small.

Bay Beach with friends

Today we took the boys to Bay Beach because my friend Sue was in town from North Carolina with her 3 children, Andrea, Riley and Shane Michael. The boys had a great time and Brady actually got on the rides a little quicker this time. Here are some pictures.


Brady on some of the rides didn't want to ride with Isaac so he rode alone. He had fun though.
Isaac often rode with Riley when he could. They got along really well.
Isaac, also for the first time went down the big slide with daddy. He LOVED it. In fact, I think they went down the slide at least 5 times. Daddy also took Brady down the slide as well, but he didn't care for it as much.

Later in the afternoon when we got home, we but the boys down for a nap. They didn't want to sleep at first and were playing around, but then it got a little quieter. Isaac had fallen asleep, but Brady was still talking away. A few minutes later when I was going to go into their room to let Brady get up so Isaac could get some more sleep. I walked into their room to find this.

I guess Brady was tired after all.

Now check out who is sleeping weird

This time it was Isaac who was kind of sleeping funny when I went in to check on him. I guess the light from the hallway was just too bright for him, so he covered up with the pillow.

It's a rainy day (as Isaac would say)

Today, the boys discovered how much fun an umbrella can be. It had started sprinkling and the boys were playing with the umbrella that daddy had opened for them. Here are a couple of pictures that daddy had taken and I thought were cute.

A trip to the park

Today, since Shawn had gone golfing, I decided to take the boys to the park by the school. It was a hot day, so we didn't stay very long. The boys weren't too big into playing either, probably because it was hot and there was a tractor cutting the lawn nearby. Here are a few pictures of the boys playing.

Guess who this is??

If you guess Brady, you are correct.


He came down the stairs with my hat on his head, and a handkerchief he had found in the drawer.