Well, nothing too exciting to blog about. Here is a picture of Ella and Brooks. I am really going to have to scan a picture of Ella at 6 months because she and Brooks look so much alike. Don't hold your breath for that, though.

This is Ella and Brody on the first day of school. Brody is doing awesome! He loves going now and says his teachers are so nice and that he goes "night, night". How in the world these teachers get 12 two year olds to lay on cots and nap, I will never know. Ella has always loved school. She is learning a lot of stuff this year and at the parent/teacher conference they told me that she will be starting to read at the end of the year. Crazy!

I took Brody and Brooks to the park a few weeks ago. Brody was doing everything on his own and had so much fun. He's so big!

Brooks also had a great time.

At this point it looks like Brooks is going to have to have surgery to correct his eye that is crossing. Poor baby! It's not getting any better and the Dr. said that he will probably be ready at about 1. I was really thinking he was going to get glasses and it would correct itself but that isn't an option for him. I am praying for some divine intervention because I am going to be FREAKING OUT when it's time for this surgery.

I have also decided that I can no longer go out in public with both boys. You can definitely tell that Brody is about to be 2, if you know what I mean. What the heck are you supposed to use for time out in Target?? Anybody? Brooks is now starting to scream, not cry, but yell at the top of his lungs when we are out and he is tired. He is a really easy baby at home when I can put him in his bed when he's tired, but when we are out it's another story. So, that is it for me and any sort of outing for at least another 6 months of so. We took Ella to dance yesterday against my better judgement. The A/C was broken, I had to wake Brody up from his nap so he was super tired and whined the entire time, threw a fit and choked on a goldfish and started gagging and turned red, Brooks was yelling and sweating, and Ella tripped and fell and came out crying. It was awful and I vowed never to take them to dance or anywhere else again.

Hope everyone is doing great!

So Much!

We've done so much this summer and I have been horrible about blogging. I am going to start with the most recent and work my way back, or I will just keep getting further behind. We took Ella and Brody to their first Texans game a couple of weeks ago. Brody loooooves ball-balls and we knew he would be really excited when we got there. Ella, however, could have cared less about the fact that there would be football and couldn't wait to see the cheerleaders.

Me and Jeff being silly before the game.
I finally decided to dye my hair dark again...trying to get back to my natural color although I'm not sure what it even is. Oh- and get this! As she was mixing my color she tells me that she is putting grey drops in the color to help cover my grey hairs. WHAT???

They were handing out these cute stickers that the players wear. I thought it would be so precious to put them on Brody. We oood and awed over his adorableness. Little did I know that taking them off would be aweful. The poor kid cried for 5 minutes!

Ella copied the cheerleaders the whole time. Now she wants to be a cheerleader for Halloween. It's also not fun to be this close to girls who have really flat abs all night. Especially after you have had 3 kids. :(

It was a fun night. I could have done without the long walk while holding either a 37 lbs kid or a 26 lbs kid, but we had a great time.

I also recently took the kids bowling for the first time. We went with Aunt Amy, Gabriel, Luke, Stevi (or Mrs. Steebie as Brody would say), Riley, Brady, Holly, Erik and Braden. The kids had a blast!

Aren't bowling shoes on a toddler the CUTEST thing you've ever seen? I might have to get him some to wear even when we aren't bowling.

Brooks just hung out in his stroller and eventually fell asleep. I was nervous about how I was going to handle all three without Jeff since I still had to help Brody with the heavy balls, but Brooks was awesome.

Ella and Gabriel

Ella and Riley. They are so hilarious when they pose with each other for pictures. They look like teenagers.

I wish they would have had these awesome things when I was a kid!

I promise to post more soon. Hopefully I will have some time this weekend.

What do you do?

What do you do when your son walks up to you with his sister's tutu in his hands and wants to put it on? Do you explain to the 1 year old that tutus are for girls while he throws a major fit because he doesn't understand why he can't wear it, or do you let him put it on and dance around while you take lots of pictures? I went with option B.

Jeff is probably going to kill me for posting those but it was so funny. He was even dancing like Ella and saying "tutu" over and over again. Jeff need not worry. Those of us who know Brody know that he is NOT a sissy.

Brooks is getting so big. He is already 2 months old. I can't believe how fast it's going! He is still waking up at night which sucks, but hopefully in a few more weeks that will change. I think it's crazy that he can be so punctual at 1:30 and 4:30 am. It never fails and it's exactly the same time every single night. I am trying to break the 1:30 am feeding because he really doesn't need to eat every 3 hours at night. We've (by we've I mean I) have been trying the pacifier instead of a bottle for the past 4 nights which seems to satisfy him but I really thought he would stop waking up once he broke the habit of eating. Oh-well. I know this part will soon be over. It would be worse if he wasn't so cute.

...a cute picture of Brody and Ella in the tub. Can you even believe their amazing tans?

It's so hot outside and neither of the kids want to be out in the heat. What in the world are you supposed to do when you are stuck inside all day? Brody knows! He made up a game where he and Ella take turns standing on his ride-on lion and posing like this:

Pure excitement! And when I need to get things done around the house, I just turn on the washing machine. It provides endless hours of entertainment.

Brody chillaxin'...

Brody and cousin Luke

Two weekends ago we headed down to the McCarty's for some burgers and baby pools and the kids had a blast.

Jackson and Gabriel are hilarious to watch. They have so much energy.

Ella stayed far away from the boys. She doesn't like to get splashed.

Best Buds Brody and Hudson enjoying their 54th Capri Sun.

Aunt Amy and Luke

Wowzers. This turned out to be a pretty long post. Hope everyone is enjoying their summer!

Random

There's been a lot going on around here lately. I actually got out by myself today with all 3 kids for the first time. Besides the fact that Brooks peed on Ella's face and all over his clothes and her dress, I would say it went pretty well.

The Dr. said we need to start working on using a spoon which just sounds like a bad idea all together, but I guess Brody has to stop eating with his hands at some point. I thought I would go ahead and try letting him use a spoon to eat some yogurt and, well, the spoon was too tricky I guess. He resorted to licking the yogurt out of the container and ended up looking like this. Yogurt is really hard to clean up by the way. It doesn't seem like it would be but it's so thick and sticky.

Here is a random pictures of Brody running around in a towel after his bath which he thought was SO much fun. I usually always carry him straight to his room after his bath to get dressed and this was the first time I actually set him down and let him run free. It was pretty cute.

Ella making a halo and a heart with some kind of stick thing she found somewhere.

In other news, Ella had her first dance recital last weekend. It was so cute and she loved being on stage. I was so proud of her. She actually did really well for being only 4. I also secretly wish they made these ballet costumes in my size. They are so beautiful.

Ella and her best little girlfriend Riley.

...and a little (not very good) picture of Brooks to be fair. :)