A Super Duper Fun-Filled Day!

The day started out with Pizza and Pajama Day at school. Boy, was Brooke excited!!! Not only could she wear her jammies to school, she got to bring her pillow and 2 stuffed animals, a poodle, and a pug. (Note: they all start with "P") When we got to school, they had pancakes ready for them to eat for breakfast. For lunch, pizza, and popcorn for a snack. Brooke was talking a mile a minute when I went to pick her up. She couldn't tell me fast enough how wonderful her day had been. We drove straight home from school because she had a playdate with Lyric. Lyric goes to SONshine as well. In fact, Lyric's class is right across the hall from Brooke's. I don't think they see each other much though.

The weather was nasty. It was pouring down rain and getting chillier by the minute. Leslie brought her 3 children, Noah, Adam, and Lyric. Brooke and Lyric get along so great! They are so cute together and it's so much fun having them right across the street! This is one of the reasons I don't want to move. We have AWESOME neighbors!

While Leslie and I chatted about grown-up stuff, Brooke and Lyric had fun playing dress-up, babydolls, games, laying in bed, playing with jewelry, all the things that little girls like to play with. I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures. Brooke had on a Cinderella costume and Lyric had the Dorothy costume on. It was adorable!!

After the playdate, we went over to Grandma's to celebrate little Noah's 1st birthday!!! It was low-key, but fun. Noah had no clue what was going on, but we sure did enjoy the delicious meal that Grandma made and the birthday cake! Yum!

What a very blessed day with family and friends!!!

Brooke's "Big Sister" PJ's for Pajama Day.

She is so excited to go to school!

She had a fabulous day at school! Now, waiting for Lyric to come over and play!

Birthday boy with his birthday cake!

Brody and Noah playing with a puzzle.

Random

We didn't leave the house today as I had a lot of laundry to do and straightening up. In the midst of the straightening up, we watched the movie, "Cars" (Brody's all-time FAVORITE movie), we played with play-doh, mega blocks, puzzles, Brooke played on her Cool School computer, and the kids played in the playroom. Basically, we just played! When we don't leave the house, Brody doesn't nap. He only naps when we driving in the car which makes for a very tired mommy during the days we are home.

We have a fun-filled day planned for tomorrow so I will have lots to post! Until then....

This and that...

This week, Brooke, Brody and I all had runny noses so we spent a LOT of time at home. It seems that all I did this week was suction and wipe snotty noses, but good news is that we are all on the mend. We even managed to make a trip out to Costco on Friday evening.

Here I am suctioning Brody's nose. He is so good about letting me do this!

Brody had a couple of breathing treatments. He is so used to this that he holds the mask himself.

Brody slept through our entire trip to Costco!

Actually, he woke up as soon as we checked out! Notice he's sporting the "Zac Efron" look! haha!

Under the Weather

Brody has had a runny nose the past 2 days although it never affected his attitude or his sleeping. He was still as cheerful and active as can be even with snot running down his nose and major drool. The drool was soaking the front of his shirt so bad that I had to put a bib on him. He never wore bibs as a baby, but I found a couple that I had kept, because they were personalized, and he has been wearing them to wipe his own nose!

Last night, I started to feel bad so I am at home "taking it easy" while Brooke is at school and Brody is at Grandma's.

See his drool soaked shirt?

This is Brooke saying, "Mom, take a picture of me!!!!"

Family Fun Day!

Blake was off today for MLK day so we decided at the last minute to take the kids to the zoo! We typically don't do anything spur of the moment as I am SUCH a planner, but we got the kids ready, got ourselves ready, goodies and necessities packed from snacks to blankets to pullups to extra change of clothes to nebulizer and we were off! On the way, we prayed for good weather and safety and boy, was the weather beautiful! It could not be more perfect! We, however, didn't expect there to be SO many people there. It was so crowded! Mostly families, but we did see several "Super Moms". Blake and I define a "Super Mom" as being a woman who is out BY HERSELF with 3 or more children. I, however, will never be a "Super Mom". The ratio that works for us is 1:1! haha!

Now that Brody is 21 months old, he is really starting to recognize animals and he sure did enjoy seeing the "phants" (elephants), giraffes, sharks, fish, bats, snakes, and most of all, "ROAR!". That's what he calls the lions. While we were there, a lion decided to show off his vocal cords and boy did he "ROAR!". Like 20 times! Blake thought this was so impressive, but my maternal instinct kicked in and my first thought was let's get the heck out of here, we need to protect the children! Blake says that a lions roar can be heard as far as 20 miles away. The sound I heard was the "I'm about to jump out of this cage and bite someone's head off" type roar. Needless to say, we have no pictures by the lion's den!

After a little over 3 hours at the zoo, we were exhausted!

 

Weekend Wrap-Up

So after a 4 week break, Brooke is back at CCF on Saturdays which she absolutely loves. One of the many qualities of Brooke that I LOVE is that she gets SO excited whenever I tell her that she is going somewhere, anywhere...to school, to the library, to the park...anywhere. Several weeks ago, Brooke had a playdate with Lyric (our cute little neighbor across the street) and that morning as soon as Brooke woke up, she got herself dressed, put a bow in her hair and said that she was ready to go. It was 8 o'clock in the morning! Needless to say, we try not to tell her about her fun activites ahead of time or else she won't be able to sleep the night before! For goodness sake, she's only 3! haha!

I digress. Back to Saturday. After we dropped off Brooke, we had 2 appointments scheduled with Julianne to see 2 houses. One in Trophy Club and one is Grapevine. As we are heading to the one in TC, we are getting excited. The location is promising, the gated community is fabulous, the area is just lovely, and then we walk in the house.....HORROR. It's just awful! No wonder it's in our price range, no wonder it was too good to be true. The story is that contractors bought the land, built the house, ran out of money, sold it to a couple who then gave up on finishing out the house and there you have it, a fairly NEW house (2006) that is still not finished and needs a TON of work. Well, no wonder it was the cheapest one in the neighborhood! Moving onto Grapevine. This house is a foreclosure. It's in our price range, fairly new (2004), great location, great elementary school, great layout, single level, gourmet kitchen, and so on and so on. The "problem" with this one is that we just weren't feeling it and that's a good enough reason for us. We're not in any hurry anyway and our house isn't even on the market!

Mommy and Brody waiting to pick up Brooke from CCF.

At Palio's. Yummy!

Linda surprised us by showing up at Palio's with Chloe and Noah!

When it's time to go "Night, night", Brody immediately jumps into Brooke's bed and gets under her covers! Too cute! We pray that this brother and sisterly love continues for a lifetime!

A sweet picture of Brooke that Blake took after church today. What an angel! ;)

A day in our life...

Today was Zooniversity at SONshine, Brooke's school that is. She woke up this morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to meet some animals brought in from the zoo! This little girl LOVES "school" which makes her momma very happy!

While Brooke was in school, Brody spent some time at Grandma's so I could run an errand and then take care of some "business" on the computer. As CFO of the Mansfield household, I have a lot on my plate right now regarding the kids schooling and the possible selling of our current home and the purchase of a new house. Regarding schooling, I am STRONGLY thinking about home schooling Brooke and Brody. Not sure how long, but ever since I spoke to my sweet neighbor Leslie (the one who lives across the street who homeschools) and saw the material, it has ranked pretty high on my list. Ideally, I would LOVE for the kids to attend Covenant Christian Academy for a number of reasons, but it is going to be SO expensive to have 2 kids going full time. Public school is not an option while we are still living in our current home so I am thinking home school right now.

I also spoke to our lifelong realtor, Julianne, about possible places for us to live. What I love about her is that she knows US, she knows what we are looking for, she knows our budget and she knows our situation and based on that, she is recommending Trophy Club. We'll see...

Fast foward to the evening. Brooke had a wonderful day at school and this napless girl TOOK A NAP!!

Both kids are all tuckered out! Brooke had too much fun at school and Brody had too much fun at Grandma's.

The princess is up! She's wearing her special prize from the treasure chest at school.

Watching cartoons and relaxing...this little girl's had a hard day...

A little time for play before storytime. It's always fun to have a playmate!

Mmmmm. Dinner looks delicious!

Time to take it down a notch....with storytime.

The playroom before....

and the playroom AFTER!

 

Someone knows his name!

So today, as I was playing on the computer with Brody in my lap, our wallpaper comes up which is a picture of Brooke and Brody taken at the beach house. I just happened to ask Brody, "Who's that?", and not expecting anything, he says, "Bo-dee". I looked at Blake and said we have got to get that on video for my blog! Hence, the video below...

We were so excited! We didn't know he knew how to say his name. We've actually never asked him, but we thought it was so cute how he said...Bo-dee. How cute is that???

Brody is actually starting to say more words now so I am not as concerned anymore as he approaches his 2 year well check in April. Unlike Brooke who was already speaking complete sentences at 2, Brody will at least meet the milestone of putting 2 words together! haha!

Welcome to Brooke's Crib!

Blake got a new cell phone and wanted to test the video feature, Brooke likes to be on camera, so...we put two and two together and what do you get??? Our version of M(ansfield)TV Cribs! (and a glimpse of Brooke's room) Enjoy the narration from the mouth of an almost 4 year old!

Guess who loves my homemade pizza?

I've started making my own pizza using whole grain flat bread, olive oil, organic spaghetti sauce, shredded cheese, and mushrooms...yummy! Last night, we had it for dinner. This is one meal that Brody likes to eat on his own! Needless to say, he headed straight into the bathtub afterwards!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Ever since it snowed in Houston on December 4th, Brooke had been praying to God EVERY night for snow. We finally got some on Christmas Eve! What a gift! It was a beautiful sight! Of course, we HAD to get Brooke and Brody bundled up so they could go out and play in it!

Unfortunately, at this time, Brody did not have a winter coat so he is wearing one of Brooke's many coats. (She has 3...it's just so much easier to buy for little girls!)


Doesn't Brody look "stately" in Brooke's winter coat??? He's not sure what to make of all this snow!


The kids were playing in our neighbor's yard next door. Since we have a circle drive, we didn't get the BEAUTIFUL blanket of snow that their front yard got!

You can't wipe the smile off of Brooke's face!

All bundled up! 2 pair of pants, socks, boots, shirt, fleece jacket, quilted rain jacket, 2 pair of gloves on, scarf, and hat! All set! (Juju, does the hat and scarf look familiar??? It was a Christmas present from you many years ago.)

The soft, white snow covering the bushes in the backyard.