Space Cadets

My friend Casey and I have a weekly play date.  We normally hang out at my house (or in the pool), but today we took the kids to the Johnson Space Center.  It's been almost 20 years since I took the tram tour, which proved to wear on our patience a little.  The main building has an amazing jungle gym area, where the kids happily played for quite awhile.  Anna Belle loves Katie Beth (whom she calls Beth and hugs frequently).

Cutest Kids

I decided to snap a few random pictures before going to AWANA last night.  I feel so blessed to have children who (generally) get a long so well.  They squeal, tickle and laugh together every day.

We joke that Brady is our Baptist and Anna Belle is our Catholic.  Before meals, we used to only say the traditional Catholic blessing.  After hearing Pappaw use a more protestant prayer, he insists that we pray "like Pappaw" after the Catholic prayer.  This confuses Anna Belle who says "amen" at the end of the Catholic prayer and looks confused for the next few minutes.  

Brady's also our Baptist because he loves to carry his Bible.  We frequently talk about what makes Jesus (and his parents) happy vs. sad.  I try to focus on things like being nice to your sister, telling the truth, learning the Bible (mostly encouraging his weekly scripture memory for AWANA).  He picked up on the learning the Bible thing, so he spends a lot of time looking at his Bible... upside down more than right side up.

Brady had to check if Anna Belle had any candy left in her mouth.

They both LOVE when we put Anna Belle on Brady's back.  Brady laughs so hard, he almost has tears in his eyes.

I need to be better at journaling all the precious little moments we share.  I was thinking that yesterday, which inspired today's blog post, but now I can't remember what all I wanted to write.  Here are a few things I do remember:

Brady thinks that small air planes will grow up to be fighter jets.

Anna Belle loves to make the stink eye at you and then laugh about it.  She's also recently realized she can roll her tongue like a taco.

Brady gets an allowance now for doing "chores", such as staying in his bed through the night, taking a bath, brushing his teeth, practicing his weekly Bible verse, completing one of his letter writing worksheets, being nice to Anna Belle, being respectful, etc.  He gets a 5 cents for every  chore, every day, which adds up to $3 - $4 a week.  When I give him his money for a job well done, he walks around the house with his chest out and chin down for quite awhile, basking in his pride.

If there's something that Brady doesn't want to do, he says it's for girls.

Anna Belle loves to go into Brady's dresser, pull out his boxer briefs and put them on.

The kids love to lay down, side by side in front of the TV.  They do this downstairs and up in Brady's room (where they watch Cinderella).

When Brady sees money in my purse, he tells me I should buy a beautiful necklace.

When Brady sees a bride, he always calls her a princess.  Since Cinderella, he asked what they were doing at the end of the movie, and we told them that they got married.  We went on to explain that Mommy and Daddy got married.  Now when he watches anyone get married, he refers to when Mommy married Daddy, like a princess. : )

When Anna Belle wants something, she tries to verbalize it, but it usually takes a little guesswork.  When we have guessed correctly she scrunches up her nose and gives a cheesy grin.

... so many precious moments, I just wish I could hold on to every one.

New York City... and Montreal

 Taylor had a business trip in Montreal Monday through Wednesday, so we left the kids at Grammy's (thank you Grammy!) and took a quick trip to NYC.  Taylor bought me the Tiffany's necklace I've been wanting.  We went up to the customer service lounge on the 6th floor of their 5th Avenue store, waited for our names to be called, and then they presented us with the necklace and this sweet note from Taylor.  I feel so overwhelmingly blessed to be married to this guy.

With the help of Priceline's "name your own price" gig, we got a great deal at the Intercontinental Hotel.  It wasn't as nice as the New York Palace (where Gossip Girls is filmed and my mom and sister stayed earlier this year), but it was nice and situated in the heart of the lower east side.

Upon arrival, we checked into our hotel, and went to Grand Central Station for lunch.  Taylor took a beautiful panoramic picture, which I still need to get off his phone.  Our tour continued to 30 Rockefeller Center.  The area for the ice skating rink and famous Christmas tree is much smaller than I expected.  Here's a shot of 30 Rock from the other side.

On Sunday morning, we walked to Bryant Park (right next to the NY Public Library).  On the walk from our hotel, I took a few pics of the beautiful Chrysler Building.  I definitely think it's the most beautiful tower in NYC.

We planned to eat Sunday brunch at Bryant Park Grill, but they were closed for a wedding.  The only people in the park (besides us) were a pair of New York's finest.  

For brunch, we ended up going to the New York Palace.  The food and service were great.  I took these photos from the famous patio / entry way of the Palace, looking out on St. Patrick's cathedral.  I would have liked to take pictures of the Palace patio (which is very recognizable), but it was rather unrecognizable because it was covered in scaffolding.

 By 10:30 AM, it began to rain.  We took shelter in Bergdorf Goodman's and FAO Schwartz.  We stayed for story time in the Barefoot books section and I bought quite a few of these darling children's books.  

We were very close to the American Girl store, so we decided to walk around.  Like most of New York, it was vibrant, beautiful, crowded, chaotic and generally larger than life.

Outside the opulent shopping and tourist magnets, this seems to be what NYC really looks like.

On Monday, we took a tour with our business group.  This photo is in the heart of Old Montreal.

These were taken inside Montreal's Notre Dame.

This was a modern chapel housed inside the same building at the grand cathedral.  The use of huge stained glass windows on the ceilings gave a lot of really beautiful light in the building.  

 We were really happy to reunite with Brady and Anna Belle again last night.  Anna Belle has suddenly decided she's afraid of our dogs.  Grammy spoiled them with lots of new toys, which they were excited to show us.  We really enjoyed our trip, but there's no place like home.

Zoo

I went into town to visit my favorite acupuncturist / chinese herbalist, and decided to take the kids to the zoo (while I was in the area).  Anna Belle was absolutely mesmerized by the elephants.  Similar to Brady at this age, she repeatedly made elephant sounds at the elephant.

 I didn't exactly get smiles, but it makes me smile that they were making ape sounds with the orangutan in this picture. 

 As the orangutan approached, Anna Belle quickly backed up (something her brother would never do).

 The sea lion show is always fun and makes me want to visit Sea World.

 I gotta good one.  Knock, Knock...

Happy Birthday Weekend

On Friday, we celebrated Taylor's dad's birthday.  We had a lovely dinner, and I took some pictures of Brady helping with dessert.

Anna Belle with Grandpa Jim

On Saturday morning, we celebrated Katie Beth's first birthday.

 Anna Belle helped her out with the icing.

 A few weeks ago, Sam (my cousin) gave us his old bunk beds.  Painting them navy blue took more time than I would have liked (isn't that the way it always is?), but I think they turned out really great.  I still need to paint the ladder and rails, but that may be a few weeks away.

 Brady is super excited about his bunk beds.  A friend of mine recommended putting a lamp on a timer, to let Brady know when he could wake up.  It has really helped Brady stay in bed until morning.  In hindsight, I think Brady was waking up and coming to our room in the middle of the night (as early as 11pm) because he didn't want to miss his dad before leaving for work each day.  I set the alarm early enough so they can eat Cheerios together each morning.

On Saturday night, we had my family over to celebrate Becky and Megan's birthdays.  As our kids get older, the kids are playing together more, and we all get to stay up a little bit later.  We had a nice swim and watched the Lorax together.  I'm so grateful to have my extended family near by.  Brady was really sad when everyone had to leave.

Dressing Up

Our family has been a bit under the weather, so we skipped the football game this weekend.  I'm happy we still dressed the kids up and got a few cute pictures of them.

 On Sunday night, we went to Brett and Allison's for dinner.  Anna Belle was really excited about wearing her clip on earrings and a bracelet.

 When we arrived, we saw that Brett and Allison got Yard of the Month!  It really looks great.

 I ordered the kid's Halloween costumes, and they came in today.  Anna Belle's Tinker Bell costume really didn't fit, but Brady's was awesome.  He's excited about it, to say the least.

 Spiderman poses...

Last night, I wouldn't let Brady sleep in his costume.  Therefore he requested that I hang it up in his closet, so he could look at it all night.  When he puts his mask on, he lurks around the corners of our home and spies on us.  These are the moments that I want to hold on to forever.