Thursday, December 25, 2014

Merry Christmas!!


MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all!

The boys Christmas ornament this year...Monticello, we visited there this year and it was so fun (blog post soon).

Preston loves the Christmas tree and seeing it all lit up.






We wish you all a happy holiday and hope everyone is safe and healthy during this happy season. We hope also that we can remember the true meaning of Christmas and in celebrating and remembering Christ's birth. 



 Oh, and Happy New Year too!!! 

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Stories and Pictures...Pictures and Stories

Some randomness for your day...

We were driving around doing errands one day, and noticed Preston had a weird look on his face. But this was how he was riding in the car...the whole time!

One time thing you think, right? With that face in a car. HA! Not so. Photo #2 Same face.

My boys...watching America Ninja Warrior. Intense.

First day of 5th grade! Last year of elementary. Mom's not happy about that.

Preston was ready to go to school with Spencer, shoes and all. 

I wanted to put up pictures that I had taken that I loved when we were overseas or visiting places and so I decided to do a picture wall. I love it! 

Since it's right by our dinner table we get to remember fun times we had and places we've been while eating dinner.

Preston still ready to go to school with Spencer. 

Now with different shoes. 

My cute boy snuggling with me and then noticing the camera.
 Gets. Into. Everything.

But with that smile, I kinda let him. 

Relaxing with some fruit snacks. Since brother went back to school he's had time to relax. 

I got these new pj's for him and they were just SO CUTE on him. heehee. Look at that belly!

 Oh man, I could eat him up!

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Birthday Boys!

 Both boys have their birthdays in the same month so when we went down to my parents house we decided to celebrate both of them! It was lots of fun. 

Preston blowing out his candles, he turned 2!

This was the cake I made for him...a truck! I used doughnuts as the wheels and M&Ms as the decoration.


Spencer got this doughnut cake because he was having a birthday party later in the month with his real cake. He loved this one though! 

Singing and blowing out the candles. 

Lucky for us, W has a birthday in the SAME MONTH! So we celebrated with him too. So we had THREE cakes/doughnuts to eat that night....we were satisfied.

Opening presents...and yes Preston just kinda kept that hat on and walked back and forth from the TV stand with all of his trucks on it and seeing what Spencer was doing. 

Preston's actual birthday. Such a handsome boy.

Getting lots of trucks for his birthday.

Spencer's actual birthday cake...a XBOX 360. This was my first time working with fondant and it was a little easy, but a little hard too...as you can see it's quite lumpy. I need to make it much smoother.

The birthday boy for his video game birthday party! Spencer turned 10 this year.

Decorations.

Spencer wanted to play MineCraft with all of his friends, so we had 4 friends over, two TVs downstairs and plenty of fun was had by those boys. They loved it! And yes, Tyler joined in with them.

Spencer had prepared a Hunger Games type game in MineCraft, then also some mini-games for them all to play too. It was pretty awesome.

Blowing out the candles.

Happy Birthday to my cute boys!!! 

Monday, December 22, 2014

Pictures and Stories...Stories and Pictures

Here are a bunch of random photos of the boys...and their stories.

Preston got a bad cough again to which we had to start with breathing treatments for about a week. So sad when this happens, although he did just get through a bad cough for two weeks, but he got better on his own.

Preston LOVES trucks/planes/trains. 

Brothers playing and apparently just looking at each other. 

Spencer was eating some Sun Chips. Preston wanted some so he just kept scooting closer and closer to Preston. Spencer would say "no." Preston would look at him sadly and keep trying to get on his lap. Finally Preston got on his lap and took over eating the chips. It was hilarious!

Preston has done this since he was born...we call it baby yoga. 

Watching a movie in his chair. 

Preston likes to try on Tyler's glasses, and he doesn't try to break them, he truly just wants to try them on. 

Silly boy.

Brothers copying each other. 

Spencer helping Preston get in his highchair. 

When Tyler was younger they found out he had high cholesterol, at age 8 it was over 200. Since we know that we thought it would be good to get the boys cholesterol checked out to see if they got that from their dad. It was so sad to see that Preston had to get his blood taken. He was not a fan of it. 

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Surgery

Way back before the school year ended we were eating dinner one night and I noticed that there was this sharp bump that came out from near Spencer's collarbone. I wasn't sure what it was so we kept an eye on it and got a doctor's appointment. 

The doctor told us that it could be anything, and that we should go to a pediatric surgeon to see what they wanted us to do and to get x-rays. It most likely was a cyst, but we were not sure if it was connected to the collarbone or not...if so it was a little bit more tough of a surgery, if not it'd be easy. 

So Spencer and I went to the surgeon and he felt the bump and said yep, we should get that out. It wasn't life threatening but if we didn't take it out it would just keep growing. We made the surgery date after being in Utah so we could have lots of fun first, then surgery second. Thankfully my parents were able to come up for a day or two to watch Preston for us so we could both take Spencer to the hospital and be there with him. We were all a little nervous.

We woke up early and got going to the hospital. Here we are waiting and Spencer showing off the bump by his collarbone.

Spencer looking scared...but he totally laughed right after this picture was taken. He did pretty well with the waiting and not being too nervous.

We got into a room and I had to write "yes" right by the bump, so they got the right area...it was hard to write with the marker. 

Spencer getting all set up. He had to get an IV which hurt a little bit, but he was so brave. The nurse right there was awesome and so nice to Spencer. She said he was being a great patient. Beary also was helpful in making Spencer feel brave and safe. 

Funny story about him getting the anesthesia. He got about half of it in his IV before they started wheeling him down the hallway, and he was asking how he would  know it was working. The doctor told him he would feel tired and heavy, and by the time they got to the end of the hallway we hear him say "I think it's starting to work, because I'm getting tired." 

Then Tyler and I waited. and waited. and waited. Then the doctor came out! WHO WAS AMAZING!!! He told us it was a ganglion cyst, which he thought it was and that it was not attached to the bone. So easy surgery and he had it done in 14 minutes! We then had to wait for Spencer to wake up before we could go back to see him. 

I was super worried about how he would do waking up from being put to sleep, but he did GREAT! No throwing up, no crazy talking (which we were a bit disappointed about that), not much dizziness, and just fine. Here he is in the recovery area. 
The nurse that was helping Spencer out there said he did great, and asked for his popsicle right after he woke up. That was a promise the doctor gave him when he told Spencer he had to have surgery. Spencer was totally on board if he got a popsicle afterwards. We waited for just about 10-20 minutes before he was ready to go and be discharged. They said to slowly get food back into him, and gave us all the info about what to do with his surgery site. Which the doctor put stitches on only in the inside! Now, how does one get stitches only on the inside??? 

We got Spencer on video in the car coming home but really he said nothing funny. Just looked tired. He came home and got situated on the couch, got him some magic soup and he was watching what he wanted to watch. 
Happy Boy. And about an hour after being home he was totally back to normal, you would not have known he had surgery!!! Which we are very grateful for, he's such a trooper. 

sidenote: we found out later that the doctor wasn't going to do surgery for Spencer or another girl that came in because a family emergency happened, but he decided to do Spencer's real fast. So many blessings happened this day!!!! 

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Straight No Chaser

I have an amazing friend up here in the Northern VA area. In fact, she is my sister's best friend who grew up across the street from us, but now that we are up here we get to see her a lot more often, which I LOVE! Anyway, she had these tickets to a concert and asked if I wanted to join her. It was the day after we got home from Utah so I wasn't sure if I would be ready for it, but I'm so glad I went. 

We went to see Straight No Chaser at Wolf Trap!!!
First off, Straight No Chaser is this accapella group that is AMAZING!! If they are anywhere near you in concert, go. Immediately. Promise. It was funny and such great music. Most people remember their youtube video of the 12 Days of Christmas. Secondly, we went to Wolf Trap, which I had never been to, but it was unbelievably cool. The whole atmosphere was so fun! Lastly, we had AMAZING seats!!!! Look how close we were.

It was such a fun night that I told her if they come back next summer we are going AGAIN. No excuses about it. I loved it so much. Thanks Ms. A for letting me come with you!!!