Sunday Funday (with a not so fun part)

I had been so excited about the weather today when looking at the forecast this week. I didn't have anything planned, but I knew I for sure wanted to go on a bike ride. I was pretty bummed this morning when I realized Casey needed his truck to haul lumber to fix his mom's fence. We live on a back road so we load the bikes in the truck and either go in town or to a trail. It seemed cool outside this morning (the brief times I opened the door) so we just hung around the house this morning until I decided what we were going to do. I am a planner-to a T so it's very unusual for me to not have my day planned out (unless we're just staying home). Brennan had stayed at Caiden's house so I had him come home at 10 this morning and offered that Caiden could come play. They both played inside and outside and Brooks took a great nap since he was up later than usual last night and up early this morning. Caiden had to be home by 1 for a hockey game so I decided that was a good time to head out. My mom is a realtor and was having an open house so we went there first. This is the only picture I took, but she was being silly and Brooks was cracking up. Love his little belly laugh:)

Then we headed to my mother in laws where Casey was working on her fence. She has creeping charlie terrible in her backyard. Brennan and I went to work pulling it, but if you've ever pulled those weeds-it's never ending. At least in her yard because she has so much. By the time we were finished, we had filled an entire yard waste bag and it didn't look like we had done anything. 

These 2 had fun playing with the bag before we filled it:)

There is a park near her house and we haven't been there in forever so we decided to head there.  It was the cutest thing, as soon as we got there this little boy, about 2 years old just came up and gave Brooks the biggest hug. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it!

He enjoyed swinging:)

Casey's mom got a loaf of bread to feed the ducks. I know you're really not supposed to feed them bread, but we were in a pinch.

Brennan had his eye on the geese afraid they were going to come after him. 

Haha

Brooks was a little leery, too but he warmed up.

They've added a lot of fun things since the last time were here. 

They had this big slide. Brooks was kind of scared going down, but he signed more every time so he must have liked it. We went down several times. 

Finally, the last couple of times he smiled. 

Then he wanted to climb back up to go down like he does with every slide. 

Brennan wouldn't go down at first, but when he finally did he loved it!

Sweet big bro

Mamaw even went down:)

I noticed that they have an Angel of Hope, I had never noticed it before. I am, of course, drawn to them. We don't have a brick for Reese and Scotlyn anywhere, but my friends have them at an Angel of Hope in St Charles. Most of my baby loss friends live out that way and it's far for us so we never got one there. I spent some time looking at all of the memorial bricks and plaques. One was an infant born in 1922. There was no date. I assume that it was a time when mother's didn't even get to see their babies after they died. It was so taboo back then. It makes me so sad, but also grateful how times have changed and how there is now professional photography being done and specially trained nurses that help grieving parents through this time. I am going to look into getting something for Reese and Scotlyn here. 

I found the plaque in memory of someone I recognized. A teenager who sadly died in a car accident just months after Reese and Scotlyn died. He was the boyfriend of a family member. 

We continued on throughout the park. We walked all the way around the lake and over the bridge along the pathway. 

Brooks insisted on walking the whole time. Up the hills, down the hills. He's a typical toddler:)

We fed more ducks on the other side of the lake. 

When we were finished I snapped a picture of Mamaw and her boys. 

Now comes the not so fun part. We get in the car to leave and I pull out my phone to charge it and I check my pocket where I had put my wedding ring, it was gone. I panicked instantly. I checked all of my pockets, I checked all around the seat since I had just pulled my phone out. My ring had been in the same pocket as my phone, which now I realize was stupid. It was gone. I immediately called Casey to come up there and his mom had already left, but she was closer so I called her to come back as well. My ring is too big, it has been for a while. I lost weight before Brooks and then I lost even more after. I need to get it sized, but our jeweler retired and I need to find a new one. I would like to lose more weight and I don't want to keep getting it resized. Just something I've been putting off. Sometimes it fits good enough to stay on, but when I'm eating clean and losing, which I have been, it slides off. Very easily. I had taken it off when we were pulling weeds because I didn't want to lose it in the yard or yard waste bag. Thinking about that now, it would have been much better than losing it in 

an entire park! 

 I took the kids and backtracked our steps. The whole time I'm thinking, there's no way I'm going to find this. Is it crazy that I am going to search an entire park for a ring when what are the chances I will find it. We started in the grass by the playground because that was the last place I had been when I took my phone out, I remembered trying to see what time it was. I kept thinking of the times I took my phone out along the way, when the last time was that I checked my pocket for the ring. I did keep checking to make sure it was there, although it had been a while since my last check. Brennan and I looked in the grass along the way as we walked toward the walking path. We started back on the walking path where we had ended. It's a big park and there were tons of people. I kept watching people walk by and thinking, what if someone picked it up, would they see me searching and seek me out. Would I post an ad in the paper or on facebook.  Then would people go looking for it and keep it if they found it. Did someone already find it and they're keeping it. It's insured so I started thinking about having to get a new ring. It's custom made and our jeweler retired. Would I call her and beg her to make me a replica. Seriously, severe anxiety. We walked all the way up the path back to this play area where Brooks was climbing. I was really feeling hopeless. I was sure it wasn't long before that I had checked to see if the ring was still in my pocket. I walked to the next area we had been before that. 

I had taken my phone out to take a picture of the plaque of the boy I recognized and sent it to his girlfriend to confirm it was him. I looked down in front of the wall and right there in the middle laid my ring. I couldn't believe it, I was so incredibly relieved. Brennan kept telling me "You are so lucky mom." Yes indeed, it was really a true miracle. 

Look at all these angels who were watching over me♥

Wrapping up Spring Break.

I was off most of the week for Brennan's spring break. I think I posted about Monday, so Monday night Brody and Grady spent the night and Tuesday the boys played here and we went to the park.

The boys wanted a picnic lunch and they wanted pizza so I made the pizza and wrapped it in foil, packed everyone up and we headed to the park. It was pretty windy so I grabbed a couple of kites I had stashed and one Brennan got for Easter.

The picnic lunch went well. Then I was getting all of the kites ready and one broke right out of the package..wah! I was so excited about the kites, too. Brennan got a dinosaur one for Easter, one was Darth Vader, which Brody loves and the other was Angry Birds which Grady loves. I'm sure I had them both in mind when I bought them:) So Grady's is the one that broke. I tried to use the foil from the pizza to repair it and I tried to get it going several times and it wouldn't stay up:( So in the meantime I am also trying to get the other boys kites going. I get them both up and they have them and I am working on Grady's (Meanwhile Brooks is running all over the place haha) and Brennan and Brody were flying right next to each other and I had warned them to spread out and they got tangled. Like big time. It was super windy so they just spun around and around each other. Gahhhh!! I should have gotten a picture of that...but here is a nice peaceful picture when they were up. Surpriisngly, they didn't get tangled while they were sitting here, but they stood up right after this and then they tangled.

So at this point I'm giving up on Grady's kite and trying to get the other 2 untangled. I seriously needed some scissors! I finally got one of the strings snapped so I could untangle and retied them back together and got them both back in the air. Then Brody said his stomach hurt and he didn't want to fly it anymore:( Poor guy was laying on the blanket on the ground. So Brennan and Grady flew them for a few more minutes and we went home. #parkfail I felt so bad, like the boys didn't have fun although they said they did. Then Brody and Grady's grandma picked them up since Brody didn't feel well. Brennan was super bummed because he was hoping for more time to play so he asked if his friend that was supposed to be staying the next night could stay that night. The boys had stayed up late so I told him only if he napped;) It worked, he took an hour nap and Aidan got to come spend the night! I guess I didn't get a picture of the two of them. They pretty much just played-outside, video games, with weapons..you know, boys stuff.

Meanwhile, Brooks is being Brooks...pulling the laundry out of the dryer..

Hanging out in a 31 bag wearing only a diaper..

Climbing on the dishwasher, frantically pulling out every utensil as fast as I am putting them in there after he's raided the pantry of potato chips.

Playing with suction cup balls. These are awesome, any age child would love them-even Brennan likes to play with them. I got these in the party section at Target. They are $5 for a pack of 6 in store, but take them to Customer Service and get the online price of $3 :)

Carrying a stool around?? This child is random..it's blurry but I laugh out loud every time I look at it, he was insistent on carrying it around but didn't do anything with it.

Hanging out upside down...his favorite.

Wednesday night we went to my dad's house for a visit-here is Uncle Vance giving his famous smooches:) These boys get so much love from their Uncle Vance♥

Thursday morning, first thing I took both kids to the doctor with me..grrr. I went all winter without being sick and now I'm on my 2nd round of antibiotics. I had bronchitis a couple of weeks ago and I was just on the tail end of it and I picked up something else. I've had trouble with my ears my whole life. Terrible. I had tubes in my ears as a kid and twice in my adult life, which is sort of unusual. I remember crying in the middle of the night and waking my mom because my ears hurt so bad. I'm so glad neither of my kids have this problem. So it's actually been a while since I've had trouble, the longest ever by far. But they've really taken a beating this time. I'm pretty sure both ruptured, one Tuesday night and one Wednesday night. They were draining all sorts of nasty so I went in to get some antibiotics. I'm feeling better, mostly still congested and my ears are muffled so I can barely hear. I'm taking mucinex which is helping and I've been getting bad headaches and pressure behind my eyes so motrin has been helping. Overall it's getting better. 

Anyway, luckily I got into the NP and got my script filled in 40 minutes and we came home for physical therapy. Here is Brooks with Miss Patty. 

Miss Patty has been coming every week for about 10 months. Brooks just loves her! She has been so wonderful to Brooks and she might love him as much as he loves her:)

She really invests a lot in her patients. She always has something new for us to work on with Brooks every week she comes. Brooks is doing really well, really really well actually, so we decided it's time for him to graduate. I want to make her photo book so I was looking through pictures last night and it made me cry. We are going to miss her so much! She has been with us over half his life. She helped me with more than just therapy, she has had preemies herself and Brooks had so many sensory issues as a baby so she had a lot of good suggestions for that, too. Anyway, we decided the next visit will be the last one. Ok, I'm crying again writing about it.

After physical therapy, we met Casey on his lunch break at the post office to get this guy a passport:) 

We are going on a Disney cruise to the Bahamas in September so both boys need passports. I had to order Brooks' birth certificate and it hadn't arrived yet so we couldn't get his. Getting children a passport is different than getting one for an adult. I will fill you in on the details, just in case you ever need one. If you don't care, skip the next paragraph;) 

First of all, both parents have to be present to apply for one, with ID's of course. If not, you need a notary or whatever other official paperwork for why the other parent is not there. Child passports are only good for 5 years. You can get a card for $15 or a book for $80. What? So I had to get the details about the difference. I needed all this info before we even went in because I filled out the application online and printed it. So, Mark at the post office is now my new BFF. We've talked on the phone several times, so many times that when we finally went in, I just called him by name. Ha. Maybe this is the same for adults, I'm assuming it is, but with a card you can only travel by ground transportation-land or sea. With the book, you can travel those ways plus air. He did say, if something happened while we are on the island and  tried to fly home that we can't without a book, but he also said he can't imagine them not letting us back in. Well, we just got the cards so let's hope nothing happens. If it's only good for 5 years, chances are we won't be doing any international air travel in the next 5 years.  At this point it's $130 difference for something we're not sure we'll use again before it expires. So the post office charges $15 for the photo so I wanted to try to take my own. I figured if it didn't work, we could always just have it taken there. I had the background right and size printed was good, but I was zoomed in too close. Which I didn't even realize would be an issue. From the top of the head to the chin can only be 1 inch. They have a measuring tool to place over the picture to check. So we ended up getting his picture taken at the post office. These are all ones I took. So Brennan's passport was $55. It will be very interesting trying to get a picture of Brooks meeting all of the standards!

After the post office we went to Salvation Army. We are going to a 20's theme banquet Saturday night so I have been trying to find costume accessories for us. This was Brooks the whole time, no matter where we were in the store, he found his way all the way in the back where they were taking in donations. 

Brennan found this book as soon as we walked in. He has been reading a lot of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and he doesn't have any so it's perfect. 

I found these cute books for Brooks. 

Everything was 50% off so I got this gem for $1

After that Brooks napped and when he woke up and Casey got home, we played outside in the last bit of sunshine.

This was the first time Brooks had gone down the big slide. He likes it, but it's pretty big so I think he's still a little unsure. 

I'm hoping he plays on it more than his brother. Brennan only really wanted to play on it when he had a friend to play with. Now he has a little brother so he had fun playing:)

Brennan loves taking Brooks down the slide. They're too sweet.

Brooks liked the tunnel, but part of me wants to block off one side. This child can be smart about different heights, but he is also very adventurous.

After playing, he walked around the yard a little. He's getting alot better with walking in the grass. 

Him was sleepy, he had a busy day♥

Friday, I went back to work one day so both the kids went to Brooks' babysitter, Donna. Her granddaughter is off school and she is one year older than Brennan so he had someone to hang out with. Donna told me when I got there that Brennan and Aidan had been facetiming. Haha. These two are so funny. I love their friendship. Aidan is Brennan's first friend that he made on his own. Since he was always home with me, he was friends with my friends kids (and still is of course), kids we met in playgroups or swim class where I would become friends with the moms and then we would all hang out. Aidan moved to this school last year in 2nd grade and Brennan had class with him. They met and instantly became friends. They would send each others parents phone numbers home and beg us to call the other mom. I was pregnant with Brooks at the time, but I finally called Aidans mom and left her a message. They have been buddies ever since. They're in the same class together this year, too. I met a new friend, too. His mom and I text and talk, we hung out on the field trip a couple of weeks ago so it's really great all around:)

They were facetiming again this morning:)

Brennan is back into Ben 10. He was into a couple of years ago and got away from it. I think I mentioned that in my last post. He has all of these official watches, but this morning he wanted to make a paper watch:)

Our neighbor owns a BBQ place in St Louis. It was #23 best restaurants to eat at in America according to Yelp. We have been talking about going so this morning, last minute we decided to go. Our other neighbor, Caiden, went with us. The boys liked their food. Brooks looooved the pork. We got him baked beans and applesauce and he only wanted the pork. I ate the baked beans and they were so delicious. That is not something I would ever order, but since we got them, I like to try a little of everything and I ended up eating them all! The pork was delicious, too. They have 4 sauces on the table and they were all good. It was the best BBQ I've ever had. Brennan ended up going to Caiden's house after we got home and going to his soccer game and to eat pizza with his family and spend the night! When they stopped by to get clothes for him to sleep over, Brennan ran in and shoved a bunch of stuff in his backpack, gave me a kiss and ran out the door. He's getting a little too big. 

I made one of these today. I'm so in love with them. I made a few others as gifts, but I think I'm going to keep this one. 

I stopped by to see Reese and Scotlyn. They've been on my mind a lot and I've been wanting to go back since Easter. I was afraid the flower pinwheels we had taken would have blown away, they were still there. but broken:( I wasn't too terribly surprised because it's been so windy, so I picked up all of the pieces and arranged the tulips differently. The tulips were still spinning:) You can see the peach trees in the background, although the blooms didn't look as full today. Reese and Scotlyn are buried in the baby section of the cemetery. It's kind of sweet and sad at the same time. Almost every time I go, I look around and think about the babies that are buried there. And their parents. Some were born a long time ago and the only one in the same row as Reese and Scotlyn was born the same year as them. She's a girl, too. Her name is Lily. Sometimes I bring her decorations, too.  No other babies have been buried there since Reese and Scotlyn. I wish I knew it was because no other babies have died, but I know that's not true.  I can only hope that one day it will be.