Camp Out!

Brennan got a bed tent from Santa for Christmas. This was Santa's attempt to entice Brennan into sleeping in his bed rather than on the floor. It's working...sort of. The other night Bear stuck his head out and told Brennan to come sleep in the tent with his and Brennan decided to have a camp out with all of his animals. He was sooo excited! The light in the bed is this little push light that came with the tent and that was their camp fire. So they all gathered around the campfire to play and hang out.

He has a had a few of these camp outs, but has also been sleeping on the floor again. Anyway, this was a fun night that I wanted to have documented:)

Our Morning

I have not been on here in forever. For a few reasons, but mostly I have had a lot going on and been super stressed and just have not felt like posting. I have had a lot of big decisions to make and it is really taking a toll on my sanity. Not to mention my heavy heart for Reese and Scotlyn. Gosh I miss those girls so much. Another blogger explained it perfectly, the sadness lingers, but there are more happy moments. People think it just "gets better" and in some ways I guess it can be put that way, but it's really learning to live again and it's quite a challenge and not one that is conquered easily. I feel like I'm rambling and being very vague, but I guess I'm just summing up where a year and a half of "healing" has gotten me and it's not one to be done in a paragraph.

So anyway, I decided to post about our morning. First, we worked on some homework-making shadows! Brennan had to pick an object that he wanted to make a shadow of and draw the before and after. Here he is making the shadow of the most loved squid in the world, Wiggly (his only request from Santa).

He drew his before (top one is his, bottom was mine-it was kind of hard to tell what it was supposed to be ;) and after

Well, he wanted to do more so we did an astronaut and his beloved Bear.

Then we made a Rice Krispie holiday house. We saw them at the store on clearance and it looked like a fun little project. Can you tell how excited he is?!

It's basically like decorating a gingerbread house with icing and candy, but it's rice krispie treats. The box said "Best if eaten within 24 hours" I don't think that will be a problem!

I just decided to add this picture from last night, we went out to Casey's holiday party for work. It was nice to meet all of his new co-workers he talks about all the time. Brennan had a lot of fun playing with the kids.

Warm Days

It has been exceptionally warm here so Brennan has been playing outside. He has really enjoyed it, especially after being cooped up all week with me being sick. We have had hardly any cold weather so it makes me a little worried about what kind of winter days we have coming and how long into spring it's going to last. I could definitely live with this kind of weather all winter! We have been grilling and it has been such a nice change.

I love spending my days with this sweet boy:)

Christmas Continued...

I wanted to share some of Brennan's art work from Christmas because each piece held a special place in our Christmas decor this year:) Some of it we painted at home and some he made at school. I think these are going to be some that I keep forever to use as decor every year because I love them so much.

Reese and Scotlyn got a special present from Santa in their stockings, too. Two purple butterflies to decorate their grave in the spring. I really hate to see their stockings empty on Christmas morning so I think this is something I will do each year. It's hard to feel so helpless at being a parent when your child isn't here so I feel like this is one thing I can do and it makes me feel good.

I might be posting about Christmas until February because I have so many pictures and events. It would be right on track with the amount of time we had our Christmas decorations up considering we just took them down today-mostly because we were out of town and I have been sick.

The Nutcracker

My mom and I took Brennan to see The Nutcracker just a few days before Christmas. What a truly spectacular show. I have never been to one and posted here on our preparations for the story by checking out books and movies so we knew what to expect. Brennan really enjoyed it and he was sat and watched the whole show!

Waiting patiently for the show to begin. This picture is taken from our seats.

Here he is with my mom.

These photos are courtesy of The St. Louis Ballet...

We definitely will not hesitate to go again next year!

Christmas 2011

I am very very behind, obviously. The holidays were hectic and we went out of town and I have been sick...hoping to do some catching up.

Brennan had a very good Christmas this year! Even though he only asked for one small thing-a stuffed squid-he received many many many more gifts. (Notice that it's dark outside-he was up before 6am ready to see if Santa came!)

Here he is with the prized request-a stuffed squid! He was quite pleased:)

Thankfully, because Santa was a little stumped about where to find a squid-luckily Santa can do online shopping nowadays;)

Digging into his stocking...

Here he is opening presents at maw maw and paw paw's house..

and GiGi's..

and mamaw's house...

We were really really wishing that Reese and Scotlyn were right next to us opening presents. We went to visit their grave and took a little pink Christmas tree.

It was very hard to escape the fact that our tree should have held many more presents underneath and that two 17 month old little girls should have been tearing through them with their big brother. How it's not fair for a second that we have to go to a graveyard to "visit" them. It is still very unbelievable to me at times. Two very large missing pieces to our world on Christmas Day and every day.