Road Trip 2011

We went on our first road trip this March/April from Colorado to California to Arizona to New Mexico.  Danny had a bunch of alumni and donors from CCU that he needed to see so Bryce and I got to tag along!  We met up with Danny in Vegas, Bryce did excellent on the flight with me due to a bunch on Mickey Mouse stickers he could put all over!  We then drove to California to visit my sister.  Danny took a few vacations day and we went to San Diego and Sea World.  The minute we arrived in CA it was cold and rainy....of course.  The morning of Sea World was chilly and rainy but we brought the gear and the attitude to bear it all.  The best part was that about an hour in Sea World the rain stopped and it became an awesome day.  We watched the shows and rode the rides.  The best part that Bryce enjoyed were the pigeons.  We're sitting at the Shamu show watching the most spectacular show as a giant orca leaps into the air and Bryce is talking about a bird!

We also saw Big Bird and Elmo and rode some rides.  Bryce wasn't so sure about it all but we loved it!

We also spent some time at the beach.  Bryce loved all the sand and the sand pipers and sea gulls.  It was so much fun with Aunti Deb to play at Cornado Island.  We strolled around the island and played at a cute park.

Then we went to Disneyland.  Aunti Deb has a season pass so Danny and I were able to ride all the rides we wanted while Aunti Deb got quality time with Bryce.  Bryce loved running around but was just too young for the rides and cried or got scared on most!  :)  Even the silly little caterpillar one in Bug's Life made for kiddos!

If you do go to Disneyland with a tiny kiddo that can't ride the rides make sure you do the child swap passes. Two people are able to go on the ride while one person waits outside and you ask for a child swap card.  Once the first two people are done with the ride then you take the child swap card and get to go with the person who didn't go the first time. It's a fantastic idea for Disney!

  

Note the scared face...he burst into tears moments later

We sadly said good bye to Aunti Deb then drove to Arizona where Danny had some CCU work to do and then onto New Mexico.  In New Mexico, we ate the best BBQ at Rudy's and stayed at a great hotel shaped like a pyramid.  They had a mariachi band that played in the evening and Bryce was legitimately upset when he had to go to bed and couldn't watch them anymore!

It was a fantastic vacation and Bryce did wonderfully in the car!  I was impressed by his "road warrior" skills.  It was also nice to get some sun and see my sister!  

An update

Wow!  Time has flown and I can't believe that we are coming up on April already!

An update on the ever precious Bryce

• He is now running.  He would love to run all the time and tries figure out ways to get there faster than his little legs know how to move.
• He is hilarious.  He will do anything for a smile.  Make a funny face - our newest face is Bunny face.  He also loves to make animal noises upon request.
• He loves to give "high fives" and "pounders".  After every pounding of the knuckles, he says "boom" and causes us to laugh so hard!  He has also been seen on occasion giving himself a pounder.
• He can throw quite a tantrum.  He has become more and more attached to his monkey blanket but we are trying to limit it going everywhere with us.  When he can't take it in a store or restaurant, we get the screaming and hollering.  It only lasts a short time but the child has quite a set of lungs! 
• He loves stickers.  We only allow him to decorate people and paper but he loves it!  We were at the doctor the other day and she asked if he wanted a sticker.  He replied with an enthusiastic, "Yeah yeah yeah."
• He loves to talk on the phone and on skype.  People are becoming more important to him and he recognizes people in pictures when asked.
• He loves look and finds and in a series of Sesame Street books he can find the little black puppy before I can on most pages.  He also love to find Woody and Buzz from Toy Story in his other books.
• He loves to answer yes and no questions.  He answers yes to most questions but the mannerism in which he answers makes us want to believe his answers!
• He chats more with saying words like mon for monkey, ber for bird, yes, no and chattering along with the basic signs we taught him before he talked.  
• He is quite observant.  It actually is quite scary to how much he mimics Danny and myself.  He loves to do all the things Danny does in the morning and truly wants to be like his dad!
• He is the apple of our eye!  I never realized how much a child can bring life and joy into our lives.  He makes our lives so rich and always brings a huge smile to our faces!

Here are a few precious pics of our little guy.

such a reader

hanging out with his buddy Benton

Back in order

After a crazy, busy month of framing, drywalling, texturing, painting....the list continues our project is done!  We set out doing this project with our goal of being able to be done by Valentine's day and we met that goal!  This was by far our biggest undertaking of projects.  We were chatting last night about how we have both learned the most from this project and how the learning curve was quite high each day.  I now look at walls, ceilings and floors differently knowing the inner workings of how they went up!
Bryce loves his Nemo playroom and we love it as well as our house stays more organized with toys being confined to one room.  I have a desk in there to get all my work done and Danny has his desk in the basement.  We also now have a fun pantry and the washer and dryer closed off.  It is so nice! Here are just some finished product pictures!

before the drywall

drywall and paint

entertainment room and Danny's desk

to laundry room and pantry

my desk and playroom

Nemo on the walls

2 weeks down

The remodel job on our basement is going surprisingly well (knock on wood).  I have never really done a project like this, Danny has, but I never actually realized everything that goes into making a wall flat.  We have decided that is is crazy to think that our walls are just one piece of drywall!  We are now to the painting, installing trim and doors and the carpet comes on Tuesday!  YAY!  We are also very excited once the basement is done that we can make a playroom for Bryce.  He needs his own space and we can't wait.  Here are just some pics of the project so far

Remodeling

As most of you know, we bought a "fixer upper" house.  When we decided to buy this house 2 1/2 years ago, I don't really think we knew what we were getting into!  :)  We have remodeled both bathrooms, painted every wall, painted the ceilings, repainted walls, installed windows and fans, remodeled the kitchen, plumbing, putting in outlets, put in hardwood floors...the list continues.  Now I say this as "we" but we all know that it is Danny the handy man that does this all and I am his apprentice!  I am completely blessed to have a handy husband!  Now the saga continues with remodeling the basement.  We had a dear friend come help with the framing and now we are putting up the dry wall.  The other projects have been huge but this one is like starting from scratch and doing it all.  It also is a little more difficult this time having a mobile toddler who would like to help at all times but we're doing ok.  The drywall is going up and it's nice to see the progress daily.  Once we get done we will have a nice entertainment room in the basement and playroom for Bryce which will be so nice to have toys confined in ONE area....instead of taking over the house!  :)

Not so sure about the snow

We also are enjoying the warm days followed by snow days in CO.  Bryce isn't too sure about snow and doesn't like to be cold so playing in the snow is not his favorite thing yet.  He is getting so big and it's crazy how much he is learning.  His new thing is putting toys on tables in a line.  His reach is just at the top of the dining table and his toys usually end up there.  He's so funny with his toddler antics and we are constantly smiling at what joy he brings us.  He still only talks in jibberish with a mama, dada, this, that, and ack thrown in but he always has a lot to say!

lining up the toys

The holidays

Deavilles

Reading his Christmas story with Granny

We hope that everyone had a very blessed holiday this year!  We sure did!  We were able to see so many people this Christmas season as we had the Westermann crew up at our house on Christmas day and then the Deaville/Stafford crew up a few days later, only to end the holiday season with a trip to Missouri to see all the extended family!  This was our first big trip and Bryce's first flight.  I have to admit I was rather nervous about flying with Bryce and not being that family that has the screaming baby.  He did pretty well and we had nothing to be nervous about!  It was wonderful to see all of our family this Christmas and we are so blessed to have such great families.  Missouri was wonderful as we celebrated the wedding of Danny's cousin Kristin and Bryce was able to meet all his extended family. We got to share the weekend with Danny's sister Ashley who has two boys, one 3 and the other 5 weeks younger than Bryce.  Seeing Bryce and his cousins play together was priceless.  We were also able to catch up with some old friends the few days that we were in St. Louis and took Bryce to our old stomping grounds!  A piece of our hearts will always be in St. Louis!
We hope that you are finding 2011 a wonderful year!

Bryce's first wedding

Westermanns with Great Aunt Helen

Crazies at Christmas

I decided to venture of with only 3 days til Christmas and was in shock of the craziness of Christmas. The lady in front of me at a store was literally screaming at the poor salesman today because she lost a coupon.  Now I understand the glory of the hunt when a coupon saves you that precious dollar or two.  This lady obviously was so worried about money that she sent her daughter back to hunt for this coupon to save a dollar on some toy.  When the daughter returned with no coupon, the lady proceeded to yell at her until she reached into her purse for her wallet- with the coupon inside.  I sat in the line thinking about how with this economy how much each penny is worth and yet we still because crazy consumers at Christmas.  We loose sight of what is really happening.  The lady in front of me lost sight of everything all for this one little piece of paper to save a few bucks.  We all seem to have lost sight of the True meaning of Christmas. We need the latest game, the cutest sweater, the newest movie and Christ gets put aside.  A baby who had nothing and came into this world to save us...for what...so we could forget His day.  And what are we storing up for??  As Danny and I were cleaning a closet the other day, I was shocked by all the clothes that I have, yes I have had some of them since college but still, the amount of clothing is 100 times more than most people of the world.  What am I storing up for?  What have I become a crazy about this Christmas?
Children change Christmas.  One special child many years ago changed Christmas forever and I want to pass that one to my child.  Yes I still want to get him that fun gift and yes I will still beg Danny to open presents before Christmas Day but I need to step aside and remember in all this hustle and bustle that God made the ultimate sacrifice.  As a mother, I could not even imagine giving of my son and yet God, in all His glory, made that ultimate sacrifice knowing full well that the ending would be His son's life.  Yikes...that is the ultimate Christmas gift!  Sacrificing everything to save the world.  How it must pain Christ to see us down here not remembering the Gift that He gave to us!   That is my new focus this Christmas...putting Christ into Christmas and taking the crazy out of it!

Merry Christmas to all of you and may you remember the true meaning of Christmas this whole holiday season and throughout the year!



Walking in the Winter

Bryce is offically a walker.  We are now toddling around the house causing all types of mischief.  He wants to walk more and more at stores and such and tries running with Benton at any chance he can. Finally at 13 months we can say that he is walking.  Our fears of him being the only kindergardener who crawled is now gone!  :)  It is adorable how he walks and is so proud of walking across the room then smiles brightly to make sure we saw him walking.

We went to his second parade of lights.  The first year was super cold but this year was chilly but fun. Bryce loved pointing at Santa and all the twinkle lights around town.  He loved the giant reindeer balloon as well. I was thanksful that I was not the one holding up a balloon like I did several years ago. The holidays are so much fun with a kiddo.  

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2010 was wonderful!  We got to spend the day before with our dear friends Daryl and Sarah from VA. I don't think that we laugh more than when they are in town!  On Thanksgiving, we treked down to Colorado Springs to spend the day with the Westermanns after pressure cooking our turkey at Chick-fil-A!  It was delcious and has become the tradition.  Bryce enjoyed running around the play place by himself but wasn't too sure of the giant tubes.  We spent Thanksgiving dinner at Chris and Sarah's new place and had a great time and were so thankful as they had to unpack the whole house in only 3 days.  Such a great food and a time spent sharing what we were thankful for.  It was also special as my sister flew into town for the week as well.  On Friday, Sister and I were up at 3:00am for Black Friday and bought everything we needed by 8am!  Not only in record time for the day but record time in and out of Target!  Oh the little things that make us excited! 
Bryce is now offically walking though he doesn't choose to walk all the time.  He still chooses to crawl since he has realized that he can move much faster that way.  It is so super cute when he toddles around from one piece of furniture to the next.  He is such a precious kiddo with so much personality.  We are truly thankful for him.
During the Holiday season we are thankful for the little things: Bryce's bright smile, the way Benton plays with Bryce, Christmas music on the radio, good friends and great conversations, Bryce's laugh and gibberish, having a fabulous marriage, marrying my best friend, family close by, skype for those of our family that aren't close, a wonderful church ....the list goes on and on.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Trip to Kansas

We took our first family trip to Kansas. I am not a light packer in the first place but then when you add a baby with his gear and a puppy then you can pack out the car quite quickly.  We actually did really well on the trip.  We of course stopped at the treasured Oasis of the plains in Colby, KS as a traditions of the trips of I-70. Once we got to my folks house in Lorraine, KS we had a great time.  Danny went hunting with my dad and they got a quail- though just 1 quail was not the plan!  :) I guess the pheasants knew it was opening day of the season. It was good to be able to hang out with my folks and fun to watch Benton and my parents' dog, Duke try to be friends.  Bryce loved having 2 dogs hanging around him as well.  We went to church on Sunday and joined their wonderful church family for 2nd Sunday Potluck!  Good Cooking! Bryce also got to ride the rocking horse that I got for my 1st birthday.  He loved it and it was fun to watch him play with it. It was a nice break in the country for a while and good to see the grandparents.