The big move

So, Oct 2010 we made the move to the new house. The whole plan was to get Mr B sleeping in his own bed for the first time in the new house. In my head I envisioned his room getting all set up nice and comfy, still doing our nice, familiar bed time routine, taking pictures and taking our time - not what happened at all :( I should have known with moving all day long that would not have been the best time to do it, because I didn't want to rush into it. We spent a very long day moving, with the help of great family and friends (THANK YOU!!!!) and it wasn't until late that night that I started realizing that we hadn't even begun to set up Bradley's room. There were no sheets on the bed (I couldn't even find my sheets, they were in a box somewhere), boxes were everywhere in his room - it was a little chaotic - not exactly how I wanted him falling asleep in a new bed on his own for the first time. BUT - I didn't want to put him back in the crib (which was also not set up at all...) because then we'd have to make a whole other transition later on. Moving him to the big boy bed had already been put off for months and months because of the move and I didn't want to delay it any longer. SO I rushed to get the bed half made for him, clear out a path in his room, and because of the late hour (and not knowing where the books were) we didn't even get to read a story like normal. He was such a trooper though, he seemed excited and he slept great!!! It was a much easier transition than I could have ever hoped for!
Like I have come to realize about myself, I put off things - big changes in routine, steps forward as the children grow up - not because I'm worried about how THEY'RE going to take it (even though that's always my excuse!), I just don't want to admit that they are growing and changing so fast. I have a hard time letting go, and admitting that time is going by, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. At the same time, once I actually force myself to embrace the change and acknowledge that we have to move on from certain things, then I'm able to enjoy the new stages, and I always find myself thinking, "that wasn't so bad after all" :)

Tammy's wedding!!!

Here are some of my favorites shots from the wedding festivities - pampering before hand, rehearsal and right before the wedding. Unfortunately I wasn't even thinking about my camera and taking pictures during so I don't have any pictures of the wedding or reception. Everyone had a really good time and Tammy made a beautiful beautiful bride!!!

Labor Day Balloon Festival!

(Sept 2010) Every labor day Windsor has the Harvest Festival and this year we decided to get up early to go watch the balloon festival. We were SO close to skipping it, I had never been before and waking up at 6 on a saturday and thinking about waking up the kids and dragging them out in the cold does NOT sound fun while you're laying in bed and tired! BUT, I don't think I had ever even seen a hot air balloon up close so I was motivated enough to drag my family out of their nice warm beds :) Gracie didn't totally care because she fell back asleep anyway, but Bradley was a little confused. Well, I'm happy to say it was TOTALLY WORTH IT! I just loved it. The balloons were so pretty and it was a lot of fun seeing them so close and from start to finish to liftoff. Bradley really enjoyed it too, so we'll definitely be doing that again this year!

Drive in

(August 2010) We LOVE the Drive-In!! We drive by it every day and for months Bradley has been asking when we can go there again and we've been having to explain to him over and over again - when summer comes! Luckily it did just open up about a week ago, so we'll have to go soon! It's so much fun to bring food and drinks and all the blankets and pillows you can find and make your own bed and watch movies. Unfortunately the last 2 times we've gone it started raining RIGHT after we got everything all set up and we had to throw everything in the truck and watch it from inside. Last year Gracie was such a good girl and would fall right to sleep without much fuss at all, and Bradley had no problem staying awake :) This year it will be interesting seeing what Gracie does, I'm sure she's not going to want to miss all the fun and fall asleep! :)

Fun in the sun!

(Still catching up as you can see :( These are from August 2010, enjoying some chalk and the new slip-n-slide that Tammy got Bradley)It took quite a long time for Bradley to actually get wet :) He would slowly put his foot in, or hand, but even that took some coaxing! We FINALLY got him to sit down in it and splash and then we finally got him to run down it. He did end up getting soaking wet, but it sure took some time. We had to really convince him that it would be fun, I think he finally agreed!

1 year difference

2009

to 2010My baby boy is getting so big!

Time Line

So - the whole plan was to do the same thing with Gracie that we did with Mr B about moving from the bassinet to the crib. The thing is, we had to get Mr B out of the crib and into his big boy room at least a month before I wanted to switch Gracie - I didn't want him thinking that she was stealing his bed away, and I wanted to make sure he was comfortable in there before she took over his baby room :) BUT - my schedule got all messed up. We moved Bradley from our room to the baby room when he was 7 months old. This is Gracie about 7 months and quickly growing out of her bassinet as you can see!Problem is, at this time Mr B was still in his crib. We had been putting together his big boy room slowly but surely and it was just about all ready for him, but then circumstances out of our control happened and we figured out we had to move. I don't really want to get into it too much, I'm upset about how much and how many people already know because I think it's a pretty personal thing, but it's kind of hard to explain to people that we're moving when everyone knew we weren't planning on it and didn't want to. In a nutshell - we dealt with the wrong bank when getting a mortgage, got stuck in a terrible loan that no one in their right mind would be able to keep up with, and bank wouldn't work with us. SO - anyway - this threw me all off. In August I knew that we would have to move soon and didn't want to get the kids all moved and settled in just to move them again to a whole new room in a whole new house. So we kind of had to be in limbo for a while as we got things figured out. So Gracie had to move to the pack in play in our room since she was odviously too big for the bassinet. And the newly decorated, painted, and all ready to go big boy room for Bradley sat there empty. Urgh... I'm still depressed as I write this and frustration is coming back. Anyways - on to more happy things :)