Smackdown

I mentioned at the beginning of the week how much Brennan likes to wrestle with Daddy. He likes to wrestle with Mommy too, but Daddy is definitely better at it. It cracks me up because the increase in the noise level once Daddy gets home is huge! Brennan is just rougher and louder and has more energy when playing with him.

After we ate dinner last night, I was in the nursery feeding Bryce and Brennan and Daddy were...you guessed it...wrestling. But then I heard the crying start and not just whining, but real crying. Kyle said Brennan tried to body slam him and ended up hurting his face somehow. It didn't take him long to calm down (although he did need his Momma for a few a minutes), but after I went back to feeding the baby, Kyle walked Brennan back to the room to show me he had his first bloody nose.

My response? Take a picture!

This first picture cracks me up because he looks like he is in pain, but it was actually taken after the 2nd picture where he's all smiles so he was perfectly fine. Hopefully we can make to age three without stitches! 

My Love Bugs

Love these boys!

Brennan and Daddy

To say Brennan is a Momma's boy would be an understatement. However, since Bryce was born, he's been more willing to let Daddy help out with some things. (Mommy still gets to do bath and bedtime though).

Even though he's a Momma's boy, one thing he has loved to do with Daddy for a while now is wrestle. As soon as Kyle gets home from work, Brennan wants to wrestle with him. I have definitely seen an increase in Brennan's energy level as he quickly approaches turning 3. He loves to run down the hallway, tackle Daddy, and then do it over and over again. It's been nice having Kyle around to help get out some of Brennan's energy at night while I am getting Bryce fed and ready for bed. The other night they were wrestling in his bed and I took a couple of pictures. I love these boys!

Silly boys pretending to sleep!

Pray Without Ceasing

When I decided I wanted to get a second tattoo, I knew I wanted a Bible verse on my wrist. I had my list of verses narrowed down to a couple and ultimately decided on 1 Thessalonians 5:17 - "Pray without ceasing". The same verse just happens to be our church's verse of the year for 2013 as well.

Having a newborn baby who is waking for middle of the night feedings has certainly given me more opportunities to pray. When he wakes up at night I haven't been taking my phone into the nursery. I'm not stalking friends on Facebook, catching up on emails, or pinning awesome ideas I'll never get around to doing. Instead I am using his nighttime feedings as a chance to pray (as long as I'm not falling asleep while feeding him).

I pray for things associated with the current feeding:

• for him to eat well
• no hiccups or spit up
• a quick and easy diaper change with no pooping afterward
• for him to fall back to sleep easily after eating

I also pray for him for the future:

• for him to open his heart to Jesus at a young age
• for his future wife and her family
• for his relationship with Brennan

I have found that choosing to focus on prayer in the middle of the night is much more relaxing and peaceful that being on my phone. Plus, I don't get over-stimulated to where I can't fall back to sleep after he's back in bed and Momma needs her sleep. 

These pictures aren't from the middle of the night, but a few nights ago Bryce was sleeping in my arms after Brennan was in bed and he was doing the funniest things with his arms. It was like he was trying to block out the light or something. Sleeping babies are so cute!

Happy Sunday

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Tubby Time

Just a quick post to share a few pictures of Bryce's first submerged bath.

This one might be one of my new favorite pictures of him. I love how he looked right at the camera.

This one is terribly blurry, but I love that big brother is helping. Brennan loves standing on the kitchen chair and helping me in the kitchen, so he was excited to lend a hand.

And here are two pics from Brennan's first bath. You can really see the difference in their hair color I think.

Thou Shall Not Steal

Here's a little glimpse into our Raising Rock Stars Preschool this week. We worked on the letter 'T' and our verse was Exodus 20:15 "Thou shall not steal". We talked about the ten commandments, painted, read 'T' words, and sang songs just to name a few activities.

Here's B saying the verse.

Brennan loved listening to this song this week. And I might've loved it too. I had never heard it before, but it's so catchy! You'll have to click on the link because I can't get YouTube videos to embed anymore.

One Little Monkey...

...jumping on the bed.

Brennan wanted to wrestle on Mommy and Daddy's bed yesterday. Wrestling quickly turned into jumping on the bed and I decided to snap a few pictures. He was cracking himself up and having a great time! And yes, sometimes he stays in his jammies all day. :)

And I can't leave without posting a pic of this handsome guy! Can't wait to see all of Bryce's newborn pics!

Back to Church

I asked Kyle to snap a few quick pictures before we took Bryce took church for the first time yesterday.

Here's a pic of Brennan's first Sunday at church.

Happy Sunday

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Just Some Pictures

Both boys are currently napping, so I thought I'd use the time to blog a little bit. I just wanted to share some more pictures of my precious boys!

Let Your Light Shine

I knew once Bryce was born, I wanted to make sure I still gave plenty of attention to Brennan. He is so into learning new things and has been obsessed with letters for as long as I can remember, so I thought it might be fun to do something educational with him. (You'd never know his mom was a teacher!)

One of my absolutely favorite blogs is 1+1+1=1. Carisa has so many great posts about homeschooling and shares tons of ideas and printables for free! One of the things she does as a homeschooling momma is Raising Rock Stars Preschool. She has all the stuff you need to do it yourself available for free on her site and I decided it would be a great way to spend some time with Brennan. It allows us to review his letters and numbers, work on writing letters, learn a Bible verse each week, and even introduces some sight words.

Here's our setup. It's basically exactly like Carisa set hers up. I can change everything out each week because sheet protectors are attached to the foam board and everything just slides right in and out.

We started this week with the letter 'L' just like Carisa recommends because it is very easy to write; just two straight lines. Each week basically involves the same steps; all of which can be found on her site. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to incorporate this into our day. School mornings (Tues and Thurs) are completely filled up until nap time, so I don't think we'll have a set time for pulling out our Raising Rock Stars board, but I am trying to do it for at least a little bit each day, all while adjusting to having a newborn at home.

Here are some pictures of Brennan completing his first week of Raising Rock Stars activities.

He only wanted to trace the letter 'L' with his finger, which was perfectly fine with me. I don't expect him to be able to write all his letters, this is just good exposure for him and he loves doing it.

Check out how he can write his letters all by himself on the iPad using the 'Hello Chalk' app! So proud of this kid!

Here he's waving the popsicle stick with a candle on it while we sing "This Little Light of Mine."

These cards each contain a word and picture that start with L. He was finding each picture I asked for.

Brennan colored (with some help from Momma) the pieces to a candle and we glued them together. 

Brennan can say some of the Bible verse now. He can easily say the beginning, "Let your light shine" and we have talked all week about how he can let his light shine - especially the OBEY part! Each week includes a cutting activity and I don't think B is quite ready for it yet, but we are trying. He made the first cut on each line of the cut-apart Bible verse and I finished the rest. Then we glued it together. He immediately said it was like a train track and pulled out a train to drive on the verse. It was a perfect idea and we "read" the verse together as the train went down the track.

As far as the sight words go, Brennan definitely didn't know the word 'see' before this week and can now recognize it. I'm not sure he'll know it forever, but again the exposure is great for him even though he's so young. He liked the popsicle stick props and the easy reader. I'm excited to try and keep this up each week so he can keep learning and we can keep spending quality one-on-one time together.

Make sure you also follow 1+1+1=1 on Facebook because Carisa often lists great preschool apps that are temporarily free. I have found most of our favorite ones from her!