Beachy Weekend

We spent our last weekend before school at the beach. Tyler has been constantly begging us to go to the beach for weeks now (every time we get in the car) so we knew we needed to get a trip in.  Guy's friend that he works with let us stay in his condo again near Clearwater and it was wonderful.  Seriously it was the perfect trip because a) it was completely free, yet it felt like we were staying in a nice hotel b) it's only about 30 minutes from our house c) giant sandbox for kids= total relaxation for us d) private beach means no crazy crowds of people which is my favorite part.  His place is on the 17th floor and that equals some amazing views of the ocean. Honestly there is nothing better then waking up, going out to the balcony, and looking out over endless blue. It's breathtaking! Anyway, we had some fun and it was nice to feel like we got away for a night before the school schedule began.

I definitely think we have taken for granted having the ocean so close to us while we've been here.  I know we'll miss it if/when we move, but I'm ready for a change too.  Maybe a place that actually has seasons for once?? (my kids have never even owned a real winter coat!) We shall see :)

First Day = Success!

Brayden LOVED his first day of school.  How can you not love Kindergarten! He talked our ears off about everything they did and I loved every second of it. His favorite thing, that he thought was hilarious, was that his teacher told his class that she thought they were all first graders because they were being so good on their first day. And the only bad thing was he spilled his "prinkles" (pringles) at lunch but "It was no big deal mom." It was funny because every time Brayden started to tell us about school, Tyler would chime in and try to tell us about his day ("I played with legos, my toys...").  Ty's adjusting to not having Brayden around, but it's a little different just hanging out with mom all day. He talks about him all day long and today when we got home from dropping him off he said, "Nooo, BB come home too!" I need to plan some fun things to do with him to keep him busy and his mind off where Brayden is!

Last night the boys were literally SO hyper playing together because they hadn't seen each other all day.  We had to run to Target after dinner and oh man, they were just crazy. Not being bad, but just playing in the shopping cart so loudly.  I'm glad they missed each other and they have so much fun together.  Now we just need to figure out how to get them to go to bed at a decent time. They are in bed by 8, but they play nonstop with each other in there.  Once again it's good Brayden's school doesn't start until 10 or he would be so sleepy waking up early!

 These pictures crack me up.  It was super quiet and I thought for sure they were up to something...usually thats the case with these boys.  But I went in their room and this is what they were both doing.  I don't even think they noticed that I took these pictures they were so into their leapfrog games.  At least they are educational :)

First Day of Kindergarten

Well, it happened. I'm not sure how, but my little Brayden is in Kindergarten now.  I feel like he literally just grew up over night.  He is SO ready to be there and so excited about it. I know he will do great and will love every second of it, but Ty and I are sure gonna miss him during the day.  It's been so quiet so far without him around today!  

Did I get all teary saying goodbye and on the walk home...you  bet I did. Not fair to have to send your baby to Kindergarten when you are pregnant and emotional! And I have to say Guy was not helpful bringing up how many years it will be until Ty starts Kindergarten during our walk home. I'm not even going to think about that!!!  Time just needs to stop for a minute please!

Tyler insisted on being in all the 'first day of school' pictures with his own backpack.  He is Brayden's little shadow so this will be an adjustment week for him I'm sure.  But it'll be nice to spend some one on one time with him before we have the new baby. I have a feeling he's going to have a hard time giving up his spot as baby of the family.

Guy knows Tyler well and printed out 2 first day of Kindergarten signs :)

Hot wheels backpack with a star wars lunchbox inside :)

Guy came home from work real quick and we walked him to school.  It takes us about 10 minutes or so, but man it was SO hot and humid.  His school doesn't even start until 9:50 so it's already roasting out.  We were so sweaty by the time we got home that I seriously might consider driving him sometimes even though that sounds so lazy. But hey, I'm pregnant so that is allowed right!

His school is really cute, but so different then the elementary school I went to.  The schools in Florida are all outdoor ones so all the hallways are outside.  So weird to me, but that's just the way it is here.  Brayden told us this morning he is most excited about art and gym at school.  Maybe that will change when he learns about recess :)

 Hanging up his backpack in his cubby

 Sorry, this is not the best picture of his teacher, but here she is. Her name is Mrs. Burson and she is really sweet.  I think he's going to love her as his teacher this year.

Is it 3:50 yet???  I'm so excited to pick him up and see how his first day was.  

This is Why I Blog...

 Yay I finally got all of my blogs published into books by year. Now I can truly say that blogging is not a waste of time at all...it's our family journal!  It took forever to do each one but I love the way they turned out.  Well, the poor 2007-2008 one has a million mistakes that I wish I could redo but that's how firsts always are when you have no clue what you are doing. By the time I got to 2010 I was a pro!

 I made these on Blurb and waited until they had groupon deals to print them. You save a TON of money that way and they've had deals a few times this year. Plus they make it easy because you can just load your whole blog on there and then rearrange the layouts on each page how you want.

Looking through them makes me want to blog more so I can remember everything.  It's amazing how much you really do forget over the years.

Quick and Easy

 My Grandma has been sick so we made this card to send to her.  Perfect easy thing to make with toddlers who want to help.  They both colored pictures to put inside too.  I found this idea on pinterest, which I am obsessed with now and currently wasting way too much time on. So much for temporarily deactivating my facebook account for the summer to cut back on computer time!  Guess I just need to get rid of my computer to solve that problem!

 The boys have been working on making a clubhouse out of some of our old moving boxes.  Brayden has big plans for how he wants it to be and right now they are in the process of decorating the sides of it. I thought this was cute...these are all his disney guys he drew.

Ok and I was amazed when I saw this. He looked at a picture of Pluto and drew it all by himself! Thats seriously better then I could do!

Every night we find Tyler asleep like this...blanket wrapped around his head.  We have to try to carefully take it off without waking him up because he gets so sweaty under there!

Rainy Day Friend

Look who we found taking a rainy day stroll outside our house this afternoon.  Not the best picture since I took it through our porch screen, but we were pretty excited to see him by our backyard. I'm not gonna lie, Florida has some pretty cool birds that wander around our neighborhood!

And here's a little alligator we saw a few weeks ago in our neighborhood. Just a small one but I still find it crazy that these basically live in our backyard (they are not our friends!)

The Waiting Game

Life is just one giant waiting game for us right now.

We're waiting on.....

• this new baby to come and what life will be like with 3 crazy boys

• where Guy will work after this job ends beginning of December

• where we will be moving to and the whole process of moving (SO dreading moving again...especially with a brand new baby and by Christmas time)

• my thyroid to finally just be regulated so I can feel normal again (not sure that's ever going to happen this pregnancy and I'm scared to see what it does after I've had the baby)

• to see if Tyler's hair will grow (this one is the hardest for me)

It just feels like a whole lot and it's hard to not feel a little overwhelmed with life right now.  I know things will go how they are supposed to and that everything always finds a way of working out in the end, it's just kind of hard to sit back and wait.  I feel like having another baby is a big enough life changer without adding in all the other stuff happening at the same time.

So my new goal is just to survive 2011 and take it a day at a time I guess. Not much else we can do!

School Supplies

As dorky as this is about to sound, I love new school supplies.  Always have! I can still remember how much I loved Lisa Frank folders and packs of gel pens back in the day. Maybe it's a girl thing, because Guy looks at me like I am crazy but I really do get excited when I see the school supplies hit the stores.  I mean, crayons for 25 cents! Who doesn't stock up?

But this time around, we are actually buying them for a real reason, which is CRAZY I must say. Still doesn't seem real that my baby is in kindergarten, but I won't get all mushy and go into that now! Anyway, Brayden and I picked up his list of what he needed and headed out to good old Target to stock up.  I just have to say that I was very happy that he was just as excited as I was.  You just never know with boys!  He loved picking out everything that he wanted and when we got to the check out aisle he looked at me and said, "Mom, there is just NO way all of that is going to fit in my backpack!" I had to laugh and tell him that he would not have to carry the box of tissues, paper towels, packs of paper etc. every day to school.

School starts in about 2 weeks here...did school always used to start in August? I swear back when I was little we started the beginning of September? But the wonderful thing is Brayden doesn't start school until 9:50 so at least we can all still sleep in.  That will be a gift with a new baby in the house! I just have to get used to the idea that we are going to actually have a schedule in life now.  I've loved our lazy days where we don't have anywhere to be and don't have to go do anything if we don't want to.  Staying in your pajamas all day is pretty nice, which just cause he's starting school doesn't mean that still won't be happening. Let's be real!

The elementary school he goes to is in our neighborhood and just a few blocks away so we can walk him there which will be fun.  The crazy part is his kindergarten is ALL day EVERY day! That seems so long to me for a little 5 year old to be in school.  Tyler is going to miss him like crazy....and me too!  But we will be moving the end of the year so who knows where we'll end up and how they'll do kindergarten there.  Maybe we'll move somewhere that does a half day and I'll wish he was still in school all day :)

The Story of Tyler's Hair

We noticed a little over a week ago that he had a big bald spot on the front left side, near his hairline.  Since I've always kept his hair long, it sort of covered it a bit and made it not as noticeable but you could tell it was there. Naturally I was worried because I didn't know why it had happened and to us it seemed to have happened suddenly. Almost like one day it wasn't there and the next day it was.

So we took him to our pediatrician and she told us she thought it could be 2 things. The first was trichotillimania, which is where people twirl or pull their hair so much that it creates bald spots.  This was definitely something I thought it could be because Tyler has done this since he was a baby.  He used to twirl my hair when he was nursing and has always twirled his for comfort when he's watching tv or before he falls asleep.  The problem though, is usually you see a lot of broken hairs in the bald area and with Tyler, the area was completely smooth at the time.

So the other option was that it was a condition called alopecia areata, which is an autoimmune disorder where the bodies white blood cells mistakenly attack the hair follicles and make the hair fall out.  It does not mean permanent hair loss and no one really knows why it happens, but in extreme cases, some people can lose all of their hair from this.  She personally thought it could be this and sent us to a pediatric dermatologist who specializes in it and could help us treat it.

After meeting with him, he thought it was alopecia areata as well.  We could have done a biopsy to be sure, but since Ty is only 2 we decided against it for now.  They would have had to numb the area with a shot and then pull out a hair cell to examine and then stitch it back up with a few stitches.  Sounds like a traumatic experience for a 2 year old, who is already nervous around doctors.

The treatments for alopecia are to have steroid injections into the spots to help the hair come out of the dormant stage it's in or to use steroid creams, and even those don't always work.  After talking with him we decided to just wait a few months to see what happens naturally.  Sometimes the hair just grows back all on it's own, which is what I am hoping for. I can see the hair follicles in the spot now, but they are not growing and if they do grow back it will happen very slowly.

I've never even heard of this condition before, but the derm said it was fairly common and he see's at least a patient a week about it. Everyone's case is different though so it's hard to compare if it will just happen this once or if it will be a lifelong battle. The right front side of Ty's hair is starting to thin a bit now too and I'm just hoping a patch isn't forming there, but we'll just have to see.

So for now, Tyler kind of looks like a little old man with a receding hairline!  I know it's just hair and it maybe seems silly to worry about it, but I do.  I really don't think you can help it when you're a mom.  I am just hoping that it doesn't progress and that more bald spots appear.  Only time will tell, but for now we are just staying hopeful and having faith that it will grow back.  I am trying to be positive and I am grateful he's not losing his hair from something much worse like cancer.  He's a healthy little boy otherwise, so we are counting our blessings. It's just hard to watch happen and to be patient.

One good thing is that Tyler loves wearing hats lately, which is surprising to us because that is SO against his personality.  He is usually a pretty stubborn kid and wants nothing to do with anything we want him to do!  So that helps a bit when we are out and about and luckily his hair is longer so we can cover it up for now.  We'll go back in a few months to see if it's gotten worse, better or stayed the same.

Luckily a 2 year old boy doesn't care about his hair at all... it's just been really hard on his mommy :(