One of my favorite things about being a teacher was seeing the look of pride and accomplishment in the eyes of a student that achieved their goal.  I get choked up just thinking about it.  As a mother, I am overwhelmed with pride (and tears) when I see my children with that look in their hazel eyes.  

My little Braxton  has given me a glimpse of how much determination he has.  We discovered a new park last week.  Braxton discovered the monkey bars.  We have been at parks with monkey bars before, but these monkey bars are only 5 feet off of the ground.  Brax gave it a shot.  He would get a few bars in and let go.  He would get back up and try again.  I didn't think much of it at first, but then Brax started to get a little mad.  I could tell he was frustrated and his little hands were starting to hurt.  I told him to take a break and try later.  He wouldn't hear of it.   He made it his mission to conquer them. I began taking video of his attempts to cross 7 green bars.  I must have taken 20 videos.  I wanted to be sure that I captured that look in my little boys eyes.  I was helping Colton with the swing when Braxton started to cross without the camera rolling.  I ran over to take a video.  My boy did it.  The look on his face was priceless.  His eye lit up and his chest was puffed out (I think mine was too).  When I went back to show him the video, it was not there.  In my rush to get to the monkey bars, I did not push play. Ahhh!  

This video was taken on our next trip to the park

Egg Hunt

My neighbor stopped by to invite the boys to an egg hunt. Her kids had acquired 700 eggs over the years and she thought it would be fun to have a neighborhood egg hunt. She asked me if I would like to come over to stuff the eggs and have some wine....YAY! I had fun getting to know my new neighbors.

Game Day with Braxton (aka Luke Skywalker) and Brennan

Driving to the big hunt

Braxton was the first to fill up his bucket.

Brax shared some of his eggs with Brennan

Not our best picture, but I will take it!

Bring Back the Bulk

Our trips to the grocery store have become more pleasant. The boys stay close to the cart and they help me find the items on our list. They have stopped running and wrestling in the aisles. I wish that I could say that the change in behavior was a result of my awesome parenting, but it is all because of this:

I have not seen (wrapped) bulk candy in a grocery store in a LONG time. It is hard to see, but there is a little tiny box to put $.05 in for a sample. I have walked by this a number of times without even thinking about it. One day, lightning struck and I realized that I could use this to my advantage. I told the boys that if they were good helpers that they could pick out a piece of candy. Now, they are (almost) perfect little angels. If you ask me, every grocery store needs to bring back the bulk candy to help mother bribe their children!

On the Move

Things around here have been busier than normal. We decided to pack up and move to Massachusetts in October. Our house didn't seem to be going anywhere and I didn't want Matt to have to commute during the winter. We found a vacation rental in Gloucester, Ma, packed what we could fit into the boat/Matt's truck and we said good bye to our friends and our home. We settled into Gloucester just fine. It is a beautiful place and the people are very friendly. The boys adjusted to a new school rather well.

Our house on Crooked Lake sold...and so did the furniture! We closed on December 1st. We began our house hunt here in MA some time in Nov. We found a house rather quickly in a town called Scituate. It is about 25 miles south of Boston. Matt is pumped that he can take a ferry to work! I am thrilled that there are a bunch of beaches near by.

We close on January 26. Until then, we are furniture shopping like crazy. Furnishing an entire home is a lot like registering for your wedding. It is exciting for about an hour. After that, it just becomes overwhelming. I will post more pics once she is ours!

Stationery card

Big Cheers Christmas Card

Find unique and modern Christmas cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Happy Birthday G!

Happy Birthday G! We hope you had a GREAT day. We had fun celebrating last weekend. We wish we could be there for all of Novemberfest. We LOVE YOU!

Bilingual

This little guy has been talking up a storm...

Once he gets going, he can be a tad difficult to understand. He was trying to tell Brennan a long story. It had to be something really important because he was talking really fast. Brennan looked at him, threw is arms over his head and exclaimed "why do you always speak Spanish?". I lost it. I had NO idea I have raised my boy to be bilingual:)