Happy 1st Birthday Brett!!!!

I can't believe that Brett is already 1!!!  This past year has gone by so fast.  Some of things Brett has accomplished this year;  crawling, walking around furniture (no desire to it on his own), drinking from a sippy cup and through a straw (never took a bottle), loving his brothers so much, crawls up the stairs, eats like a CHAMP, giggle and babbles.  

He has brought so much joy into our family, Jay and I love to watch Reed and Drew interact with him and include him when playing.

Happy Birthday Rocco!

The Great Outdoors!

All of the boys have been loving this weather.  It has been perfect for everyone to play and run around outside.  It is so cute, if I am not able to go outside with the other two and Brett is up, he just stands in front of the window or crawls to the back door and just watches Reed and Drew play.

Strike!

Check out that form!

Nick was home over Memorial weekend and we all went up to see him.  The boys have been begging to go bowling, so we decided to go.  I guess Wii bowling has been giving them some good training.  They both bowled great!  It was so great to see Nick and we can't wait to see him again soon!

Drew's field trip to the farm

Drew's preschool class

Drew and I went on a field trip yesterday with his school, to one of his teacher's homes.  She lives on a farm and has a ton of land and lots of animals.  Ms. Donna has; chickens, llamas, goats, sheep and dogs.  The kids just loved all of them. They were able to feed each of them and pet them as well.  Drew of course wanted to ride the llama's.  We were also able to go on a tractor ride.  It was great to be able to go on a field trip with Drew, I loved being able to see him interact with all of his friends that he talks about all the time at home.

Drew and his best friend Issac. These two are inseparable at school.

Reed's sports

Reed has been keeping us all busy with all of his sports.  We were in soccer from March-May.  It was a lot of fun to watch him try a new sport this year.  But since the season was so early in Spring it was pretty cold at most of the games, so not as enjoyable for Drew and Brett.  They still enjoyed going and cheering on their big brother.  They had a great season!

Brett all bundled up at Reed's game. What a good lil' sport.

We are now in baseball, which started in the beginning of May and will go to the end of July.  This is Reed's favorite sport. He is hitting the ball any chance he can get and always playing catch with someone.  It is wonderful that we have a baseball field in our backyard.  The boys are over their at least 3 times a week.  We joined a different league this year, and he seems to be enjoying it a lot more. It is a little more competitive then last year.  

We had one scrimmage and naturally it was 40 degrees out with 20 mph winds!  Yikes it was cold!  I was very glad that we hadn't packed up all the winter gear.  Gotta love the WI weather! 

Reed's solo spring concert

Reed had his Spring concert last week.  Reed not only sang a solo, but he read a whole introduction to another song.  He did great and was not nervous at all.  Thank you Nonni and Pap-Pap for making the trip over to watch Reed's concert.

Brett's attempt at crawling

Brett is trying so hard to start crawling, but he just can't get it down.  It is so cute when he does the little bit that he does.  He is usually giggling when attempting to crawl.  

Hanging out with Daddy

The boys are loving this warm weather.  They are outside any chance they can get.  As soon as Jay gets home from work, they are begging him to go outside and play baseball.  Unfortunately, Brett has to stay inside and watch from inside since I am normally making dinner.  He loves to sit or stand by the window and watch them play.  He 'follows' them around the yard and just giggles.  It is so cute.

You can just see the excitement on Brett's face, even though you can't see his smile.

Being able to see family a little bit more.....

Drew talking to his Barbie in Arizona.

We finally convinced our family to get video cams.  The boys love being able to see their grandparents on Skype.  I am so glad we were able to get them on it.  The best thing of all is, it is FREE!

What a weekend, what an honor! cont.

Not only was it a wonderful weekend for my mother, it was also so wonderful because I was able to see family.  I was able to meet my niece Taelyn before she turned 1.  I was also able to see my Aunt Sue and Uncle Wally (who live in Connecticut) and also Aunt Sandi and Uncle Gary.  It was great to see everyone and the weather was perfect for the weekend.

Brett enjoying the wonderful sunshine in the morning.

Brett and Taelyn playing in the pac-n-play outside.  We tried to let them be on the ground, but they wanted to eat the rocks and dirt.

As you can see, the yards are not grass, they are stones.

I love this photo!  Kean absolutely loved his new cousin.

My precious "little" niece Taelyn.  I couldn't get enough of her. Unfortunately she is not a cuddlier, so I wasn't able to hold her all that much. 

My mom and my nephew Kean dancing at the award ceremony.

Me, my mom and my sister. The only way you can tell that we are related is by our smile.

I have so many more pictures that I would love to post from the weekend, but I will save you from picture overload until our 2 week trip this summer with the whole family to Arizona.

What a weekend, what an honor!

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go to Arizona with just Brett. I am so thankful for two great friends that were willing to watch Drew and Reed for me. Of course this was the worst weekend for Jay, because he was on call all weekend and starting a new rotation on Monday. I wouldn't have been able to make it if it wasn't for great friends.  I owe you both big time!!!!

The reason for going down to Arizona was to honor my mom.  She is an incredible woman! She has taught both my sister and I what it means to be part of your community.  She has started programs to help the less fortunate everywhere she has been.  From working in soup kitchens, being the Director of St. Vincent de Paul,  organizing tons of programs at the United Way and fighting hunger and poverty any chance that she can get!  

Over the weekend was one of her fund raisers for Hunger, it is a program called Empty Bowls.

"The basic idea for Empty Bowls is simple. Participants create ceramic bowls, then serve a simple meal of soup and bread.  Guests choose a bowl to use that day and to keep as a reminder that there are always Empty Bowls in the world.  In exchange for a meal and the bowl, the guest gives a suggested minimum donation of ten dollars.  The meal sponsors and /or guests choose a hunger-fighting organization to receive the money collected. Any organization fighting hunger qualifies. Many groups choose to donate to organizations within their own community and others choose to give their donations to national or international hunger relief."

This was the second year that my mom has done empty bowls in Green Valley and she has already doubled what she did the first year. She raised over $7800.  People stood in line for 45 mins to make sure that they could make a difference as well.  I was so pleased that I could make it down there and help out with it. While she was in Stevens Point she had started the program as well and I was always there to help here.  It is a great program and I can't wait to be able to start my own Empty Bowls once we have moved to our new community.

Besides my mother doing Empty Bowls she was awarded Citizen of the Year by the Sahuarita Elks Lodge,  She had no idea that she had been chosen for this award.  We had kept it a secret from her until about 2 hrs before the program.  But even then we did not tell her what we were doing, just that we were were all going to dinner and she was nominated for something.  We wanted to make sure that she was somewhat prepared to talk in front of a group, because we all know what could happen if not. Mom, you definitely deserved the award. I know you may think you don't, but we would all not be able to do what we do if you weren't there to get the programs started.

I am so proud of you and I hope will be a great role model to my children like you have been to us.

It was a very quick weekend, but definitely worth it!  

Update time

I just realized that I haven't posted anything for almost a month.  You would think there has been nothing going on around here, but there has.

Here are a few highlights:

Reed-growing and growing, he ate a whole pizza by himself the other day

-starts soccer in two weeks, then baseball right after that ends

-is loving the warm weather, he plays basketball outside all day

-draws pictures all the time for Drew

Drew- has his cast off, his broken arm did not slow him down at all. He fell off his bike the day after he got his cast off and I thought for sure we were heading back to the ER

-he makes me laugh every day with his one liners. His latest thing to do is reenact the Madagascar 2 movie...He is so stinking funny! He cracks us up all the time.

-loving Brett, he is such a great big brother to Brett. He makes sure that he isn't getting into anything that he shouldn't be. Plays with him all the time, they are so cute together.

Brett- sitting up on his own, as long as you sit him up

-eating 'real people' food. He is not a big fan of the pureed stuff anymore. It has been a challenge to find foods for him, because he still doesn't have any teeth.

-he still doesn't like to eat anything green

-rolls everywhere! Still not interested in crawling, but when you are in a small space you don't need to crawl because everything is right where you need it.

-his first bloody nose

All the boys love talking on our computer using Skype to their Baba and Barbie and also Nonni and Pap-Pap.

Drew talking to Barbie on Skype

March Madness has begun at our house.....Brett was watching the game and the bracket with daddy.