the big 0-2!

This past Saturday, Braidy turned TWO years old. I seriously felt like it was a couple of months ago that we were celebrating him turning one. Time only seems to speed up. We had a busy and eventful weekend, so I will try my best to capture it all!

Friday night, Poppa and JJ came over along with Aunt Jess, Aunt Rach and Crockett to start the weekend of celebration off. We had pizza from Orlando's and the boys just played and played. Poppa and John played catch and everyone played on the trampoline. We had a great time just hanging out!





Saturday (BIRTHDAY) morning, we made birthday pancakes and he got to blow out 2 candles, which he loved! We've been practicing singing Happy Birthday and blowing out candles for a while now, so he's a pro!




We decided to have a "Bug" Birthday party this year. The kids took their bug catchers and went on a bug hunt, we played in the backyard, ate yummy trailmix, had cupcakes with bugs on top, and "kinda" opened presents. Braidy didn't exactly love his party this year. I think he was running low on sleep and a little overwhelmed with everything all at the same time. Sleepy + Overwhelmed = Meltdown(s). He was the happiest when everyone was just playing in the backyard, where he could do his own thing. He was the unhappiest when it was time to open gifts. He made it through a couple and then meltdown #1 happened. He wanted nothing to do with the presents..so I got to finish for him. He did enjoy blowing out his candles on his cupcake. Major meltdown #2 happened when it was time to give his friends their "S'more favors"...he did NOT want to let anyone else have one, I guess he thought they were all his. Besides those 2 instances, we had a great time and really enjoyed all of our family and friends coming to help us celebrate another birthday for our little man.









After the party, all of the family stayed around to visit. Braidy, Crockett, and John played in the water, suds, drank DP, ate lots more trail mix, and just had fun playing with each other....and the adults had fun watching and laughing at them playing together...they sure are funny.





Sunday for lunch, Nena and Pops cooked a WONDERFUL birthday lunch consisting of fried shrimp, salad, potatoes and corn. Lulu and Papaw, Crockett, Jess and Chris all came over to enjoy lunch with us. We had a great feast with even greater company!

This 2nd year has just been as joyful as the first one. I love watching you grow and learn new things daily. I love hearing new words and phrases come out of your little mouth...."DOH MAN!" is a favorite these days, as well as "I want Docor Peppah". You say 7 and 8 word sentences that make me laugh daily. You love asking questions as a 2 year old. "What you say, Momma" when you don't hear what I said, or if you don't understand something "What that mean, momma?" Another question we hear about 100 times a day is "What Dooooooin, momma?" or "What Doooooooin, daddy?" You are still very social and love being around your friends. We moved you into a big boy bed a couple of weeks ago, and you're doing pretty good. Better than expected, anyways! You're growing up right before our eyes, and I love the opportunity to watch it everyday, all day. There's nothing better than being your mommy and daddy!!!! We love you SO much, Mr. Braidy Spencer! I cannot wait to see what year #3 holds for you. I know it will be just as special as the first two.

At his 2 year well-check today he weighed 24 lbs and was 33 inches long...5th percentile in weight (up from 3rd!) and 35th percentile for height.

Family Reunion and the Fourth!

This past weekend we loaded up and headed to Oklahoma City for the Lowry family reunion...my mom's side of the family. Reunions are every 3 years, and it had been a few times since I've been, so this was the year to go! We arrived late Friday night after traveling through some rain and quite a few stops, we finally made it!

Saturday we took the boys to the Science Museum where we spent a few hours. They (and we) had a great time! It was really neat with a TON to do, even for little guys like Braidy and Crockett. They played in a firehouse, in bubbles and water, painted thier faces (Braidy did his own), ran around like crazy kids, climbed a HUGE treehouse, rode the seesaw together, Braidy rode a little motorized scooter thing, built with blocks, pushed block-built structures down, Crockett sat in a tractor and loved every minute of it, made paper cups fly, and TONS more. Aunt Darla, Uncle Tim, and LuLu were great sports and so much fun to play with!
After a LONG nap on Saturday we had our reunion dinner that night. It was a little wild with lots of kids running and screaming, but it was fun. Braidy and Crockett played with some play-doh and bubbles with our cousins and had a great time!






Sunday we had our family church service. Sitting with 2 boys under the age of 2 for any length of time is not easy, but to sit there trying to keep them quiet for almost an hour is just about impossible. I will say they did pretty good. Braidy was watching my Uncle Tim lead the music and would do his arms just like Uncle Tim was doing...it was pretty funny. Crockett was singing along with the songs. The only small incident is when Braidy launched a bag full of goldfish into the row behind us. Everyone thought it was pretty funny. I was mostly embarrassed, but too, found it pretty funny. The man behind us made a great catch. Good thing I had JUST closed that bag, or the fishies would have gone EVERYWHERE, making that small incident a much bigger incident.



After a great lunch at Cracker Barrell with the Lowry's, the Stone's, the Lewis' and the Curry's, we headed home to the LBK. Lubbock had gotten TONS of rain while we were gone, so we were praying we would come home to a dry house...and we did! YAY! Not only was it dry, but we had our own mushroom garden waiting for us also. Seriously, our front yard was WHITE because of all of the mushrooms. I spend a good part of yesterday picking them out of our yard...yuck. Some were small, others were about 6 inches in diameter...sick. Not sure i'll ever want sauteed mushrooms again. Sunday night we got some sparklers for Braidy to do to celebrate the 4th of July. At first he was NOT interested and a little scared, but eventually he warmed up to them and decided they were pretty cool. Overall, it was a very successfull 4th of July weekend, spent with family who we all love dearly.

It's a.........

We had our first ultrasound today....drumroll please.......

It's a BOY!!!!!!!!!!

Right away when the sonographer put the "wand" on my tummy, I said "I think I just saw a little penis"....Ryan didn't believe me, but the lady agreed with me and said "yes, you sure did"...so the surprise was over quickly to say the least. We are thrilled with another boy. Boys are just sweet as can be and fun fun fun. I can't believe I'm over 1/2 way through this pregnancy. It seems to really be going fast. Everytime I think about how far along I am, another week has passed.

Everything looked great on the ultrasound. This baby has big lips like Braidy always did on ultrasound pictures. It's just amazing that a little 20 week thing is so delicately formed and perfect already. Thank you God for another little miracle baby. Another boy will fit perfectly into our family!!! Now for a name...

As soon as I find my camera/computer cord I will post some pictures of the little guy!

Catch Up #2: John Swimming and Baseball

For the 3rd summer, John took swimming lessons from Coach Donny, and this was his year! He turned into a fish and took off swimming. I took him the first Monday of lessons, and not a whole lot was happening. He went to his mom's that week and I went back to lessons the next Monday and he had made SO MUCH progress. It was cool to see such a difference. He was swimming by himself from end to end, diving by himself and swimming to the ladder, jumping off the diving board and swimming to the ladder, and diving for things at the bottom of the pool. He really did a great job and LOVES swimming now!




His baseball season also came to an end. The Defenders ended up in 3rd place in the end-of-season tournament. They really improved during the season and had a lot of fun in the process of learning more about the game. He is definitely obsessed with the game of baseball. He loves playing catch everyday, he loves watching it on TV, and talking it with dad. I know he's ready for next season already!

Catch Up #1: LA!

I have a LOT of catching up to do, so i'll start now that I'm back in town for a while! For my birthday, my wonderful husband arranged a trip to LA for me to go see and spend a few days with Danielle. Him, along with my parents and sisters went in and sent me on my way, equipped with plane tickets and shopping money! June 12th seemed SO far away at the time, but it came!!!

I flew in late Saturday night and the Touchstone's took me straight to the ice cream shop. I think they know me pretty well!! After some ice cream we walked down a pier over the ocean. It was CHILLY but really pretty and peaceful.

The next day we had beach plans, but the weather said NO! It was COLD. Like jeans and a long sleeve shirt cold. It only got colder when you walked toward the beach. Apparently June is cleverly called "June Gloom" because it is very gloomy and not very sunny most of the time. Something about the temperature of the land and the temperature of the water. Anyways, don't expect 100 degree weather in Cali in June! However, we made the most of it. I helped the cakeball expert herself make some precious apple cakeballs and then we headed to the beach for a FABULOUS brunch! We did some shopping, more walking on the piers, and yes, went to the beach just for a photo op! After a much needed nap we went to dinner at PF Changs (YUMMM) and then went to see IronMan 2.

Monday was BEVERLY HILLS day! How exciting. I've never been to any of these places so they were all new and very exciting for me. Although I had no intentions of buying anything, it was still so cool to see it in all it's glory! The weather even cooperated! It was really really nice and sunny! Danielle took me to a place called 9021-pho for lunch. It's a Vietnamese restraunt and we had the Pho (pronounced Fuh). IT was a huge bowl of noodles, broth, and beef. It was different but really pretty good. After our Pho, we had to go to Crumbs (similar to Sprinkles) for a huge and yummy cupcake. Then we were off to our shopping excursion. It was so fun to go into stores like Juicy, LV, Tiffany's...all on Rodeo Drive. I did make one purchase...cologne for my husband for Father's Day from Polo. I felt cool! We walked and walked and shopped and shopped and even found a place that was giving 10 minute free foot massages. YES PLEASE. I think we were supposed to buy something afterwards, but we didn't. =) After Rodeo Drive we headed to the Santa Monica Promenade where we had some coffee, people watched (it was very entertaining!), watched the sunset behind some mountains, and ate at Buddha's Belly...Thai Food. Are you noticing a trend here? Yes we ate LOTS of asian food, which I LOVE!





Tuesday was "Operation Beach Day". We were determined. One way or another we were going to the beach. We decided to try out Laguna Beach. Danielle hadn't been there either so it was an adventure for us both. We drove down there that morning, had a nice lunch, found some AWESOME candy/caramel apples for dessert (seriously, they were sinful!) and went to the beautiful beach. It was gloomy. We were hesitant to even go, but we thought we might as well. We got our chairs all situated and sat there in our dresses/jackets for a while then decided to take them off. Sure enough, the fabulous SUN came out! It was PERFECT weather. As soon as it got to be a little hot, a cool breeze would blow. Ahh it was heaven. We could have stayed there forever. We both got some sun (YAYAYAYYYYYY!) and caught a nap or 2 also. We did a little shopping on our way out. Laguna Beach was a really cool little town. I can't wait for her to take Ty back to check it all out! That night we went to In N Out Burgers, my first time. It was pretty tasty!!!




My last day...Wednesday. I was to head home around 3:30 that afternoon, but we wanted to squeeze in some HOLLYWOOD action before that. We drove there and started on our journey through the street of Hollywood. We saw tons of stars and Grauman's Chinese Theater where all the handprints/footprints of the stars were. We walked the streets and found a really great store where I shopped! Yes, I bought myself some clothes. Danielle is my personal shopper, so she helped. I was really excited that I got some clothes that can be maternity and regular all at the same time! After our shopping it was time to find some lunch (we were starving) and head home to get my stuff and head to the airport. We found an awesome sushi place and we chowed down (no worries, I only got COOKED stuff...it was still awesome!!!) We headed back to Danielle's with JUST enough time to make it to the airport. As much as I would have LOVED a few more days in LA, I was ready to be home and see my boys!







What a wonderful vacation! Thank you to everyone who played a part, especially to Ryan for the awesome idea and for being a single father for a few days! I love you!

Memorial Day...a few weeks late

For Memorial Day Weekend, we headed east to visit the Curry's and most importantly, to see our precious nephew, Noah. Uncle Ryan and cousin John had not gotten to meet the new little guy yet. We drove in late Saturday night and stayed until Monday afternoon. In addition to seeing Todd, Marci and Noah, we also got to see the Tilley family and help celebrate Poppa's birthday a couple of days early with a BBQ dinner at Aunt Anne's.

Sunday was HOT (surprise, surprise!) but we played lots of baseball in the yard, walked to the park by White Rock Lake, played in the sprinklers, and hung out inside where it was cool. The boys had a lot of fun, and Uncle Todd gave John daddy's old catchers mitt, which John thought was just about the coolest thing ever! Both boys LOVE their cousin Noah. John wanted to hold him quite a bit, and Braidy just would get in his face and in his little high pitched baby voice say "Hi, Noah Cousin!" Pretty sweet boys!


That night we all loaded up to head to Aunt Anne's where Crockett, Aunt Jess, Aunt Rach, Poppa and JJ were waiting for us...along with the aunts and uncles and Tpa and Dma! John, Braidy and Crockett were quite a handful but definitely the life of the party. They really wanted to jump in the pool, but instead just dipped thier heads in. After a delicious BBQ dinner, the boys all played in the yard, caught some lightning bugs (very cool) and enjoyed some cake!!!



Monday we just hung out. Uncle Todd took the guys to a baseball park for a while, while Marci and I hung out at the house with little Noah. Before we left, Braidy and John got to paint a canvas for Noah's room. They thought that was the coolest thing ever, and it was! Unfortunately we had to head back to the LBK, but it was a great trip and we were glad we could make it there, even if it was a short time!

The drive there and back was surprisingly very uneventful. My child is not known for his good behavior on car trips of any length, but he did GREAT!!! Not one single breakdown. This is a big deal. Sure made the trip MUCH more enjoyable!