Swimming with boys

Since Brant has been out of town 7 weeks so far this year, we decided to join him for a few days in Cincinnati. We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge which has an indoor water park. It was so fun! It was nice pretending like it was summer after a long and cold Ohio winter.
We're not sure what Gavin thought of the water. He didn't seem to love it or hate it. He's pretty content with whatever situation he's in.
Spencer was trying to decide what he wanted to do next. He really wanted to go down the slides, but kids couldn't go with adults and he didn't want to go by himself.
Spencer spent a good hour with this one little fountain. He didn't want to play with any other fountains, just this one. After a couple of days we finally got him to actually go into the water.
Gavin started crawling in the hotel room! Now we can't get him to stop. Spencer's not a fan of Gavin now being able to get into everything he's playing with.

Gavin's favorite toy of all time... a straw. He literally plays with one for hours (broken up by eating and sleeping and crying, of course).

Mother of boys

You can tell I'm the mother of boys by how many toy cars we have (had). It was getting out of control. Spencer has loved playing with cars since he was 18 months so we've had lots of time to grow our collection. It was time to get rid of some. Here is a before and after. (Spencer was obviously napping during this process, but he hasn't missed any yet.)

I think we can enjoy the cars we kept more now that we're not overwhelmed with them. (Notice how Gavin is wearing a completely different outfit even though this process only took about 20 minutes. We go through 2-3 outfits a day between blow-outs and spit-ups.)

This is how we spent most of the day Monday (watching movies in a fireman hat). Spencer has croup. Again. Poor kid hasn't slept much the last few days (poor mom and dad too).

Who needs a playpen when you have a laundry basket? Gavin loves playing in here and it's pretty sturdy. Spencer knows all of his letters and sounds so we're starting to teach him to put them together to make words. He sits and pretends to read books so he'll be thrilled when he realizes that he can read the words all by himself.

Colors of love

We made some heart shaped crayons to celebrate Valentine's day. I got the heart tray at Target, of course. It worked really well and the crayons popped right out. I was hoping I could use the tray for muffins or something afterwards, but there was a layer of wax in each heart that I couldn't get out. We'll just keep the tray to make heart crayons on future Valentine's Days.

Here's how we made them:

1) Spencer helped me find 3-4 crayons of each color. We peeled off the paper and broke each crayon into 3 or 4 pieces.

2) Spencer put the matching colors in each heart (we used different shades of the same color and I think it turned out really cool)

3) We baked them at 350 for about 10 minutes. I put the silicone tray on a cookie sheet because it added more stability. I didn't want to mess with a wobbly tray full of hot wax.

4) We let them cool probably an hour before coloring with them.

Warning: these babies made the house really stinky. Make sure to bake some cookies afterwards to mask the smell. Cookies and coloring, it doesn't get much better than that.

GAVIN

Now that both boys are (finally!) sleeping in the same room, I thought it was time to add Gavin's name to the wall. I used the same scrapbooking paper pack that I used on Spencer's name. I just mod-podged it on and then used a brown ink pad to rub around the edges and give it a little of a 'distressed' look. I would love to find a big '&' so I could do 'Spencer & Gavin', but I'll have to keep looking.

I got the letters from JoAnns when they had their $1 off letter sale so they were $2 each. They're made of chipboard so they're really light weight. I hung them on the wall using the 3M poster strips so they won't leave any marks when we take them off. I hope Gavin feels official now. :)

Love at Home

Brant came home this afternoon after being out of town all week and surprised me with flowers, brownie bites, and Naan (not pictured because it was already eaten at this point, I'm surprised the brownie bites made it this long). Such a sweet guy! Brant was working in Cincinnati and then spent Thursday and Friday interviewing at the University of South Carolina. Last week he interviewed at the University of Alabama and in two weeks he has an interview at Texas A&M. It'll be fun to see where we end up!
I saw this frame in the dollar section of Target (one of my favorite places) and thought it would make cute Valentine's decor. It's my only Valentine's decor, but I figure if I add one piece a year then in 20 years I'll be really festive. I cut out a piece of scrapbook paper to fit the frame and then made the vinyl letters with my cricut (thanks, Mom!) and stuck them on. It took 20 minutes, cost $1, and I really like it.
We almost have a crawler on our hands! As cute as it is, I'm terrified of this little guy becoming mobile. With Spencer it was easy to keep little things off of the floor because Brant and I were the only ones around. Gavin has a big brother which naturally leads to lots of things being on the floor that I don't know are there. I also need to baby proof again...
At this point Gavin can still only scoot backwards. It's cute because he always gets stuck in some corner.

Instead of spending time in his house these days, Spencer spends time on his house. I think he was fishing here.

Family Pictures

We got our family pictures taken at Inniswood Gardens back in early November. There were some really cute ones. Our photographer was Tiara McFalls from McFalls Images.

Winter at home

We spend a lot of time indoors in the winter. I'm not a fan of cold weather. Well, I really hate it. I feel somewhat guilty for always wanting to stay inside because I know Spencer loves playing outside no matter what the weather. Maybe I'll set a new goal to spend more time outside with the kids. Maybe. :)

This is Spencer's current collection of 'friends'. He is always playing with his stuffed animals and takes good care of them, even putting them down for naps.
Gavin loves a good Daddy cuddle
Ready for the cold weather (when we actually do brave the freezing weather and snow)!
Gavin's such a happy boy (and never stops moving as you can tell from the blur).