The Bratt Family

They Are Growing Up

2010-11-11T20:18:00.003-05:00

So for the past 6 years Matthew and Adam have shared the same room at their insistence. That is until this past weekend. They finally decided it might be nice to have a place of their own. Mike gave up his office and moved it into the basement and Adam took the old office. Matthew kept his bedroom and was able to spread out. They love it!

Matthew at his keyboard in his room.

Adam playing this snare in his room.

They have moved all their Lego's to their bedrooms (which I like!). Adam's closet is huge so they made it the Lego room. Now they can keep their Lego's out and keep the door closed to keep the Andrew Monster, who eats Lego's for lunch, away :)

Fall Break Fun

2010-10-25T11:17:00.003-04:00

Fall break has come and gone. So fast! We kept very busy though. Thursday we took a trip to the Indianapolis Zoo. It was Andrew's first time at the zoo and I think he had a good time. He really like the Ocean with all the fish and sharks. He actually reached into the shark pool to pet a shark! Matthew and Adam had fun showing him around the place.

Bright and early Friday morning we dropped Andrew off with my mom so that Mike and I could take Matthew and Adam on the Cub Scouts camping trip. The trip was a three-night camp out but being new the camping world we opted for one night and two long days. We survived, had a good time, and will do it again!

I will post pictures and maybe some video soon!

Fall Fun

2010-10-11T10:19:00.003-04:00

I am just going to pick-up here like I have been posting for the past 5 months. What can I say, it was summer and we have been busy!

We has a great summer. The boys enjoyed a few camps. Matthew spent a week at art camp learning about various forms of art. He enjoyed his time and we ended up with a lot of art pieces from his experiences. Both Matthew and Adam spent a week at YMCA camp where the highlight of the camp is a wooded area and creek they play in. I am not sure why that is so exciting since we have that in our backyard as well.

We spent a week in July in Grand Haven, Michigan in a little house we rented along the beach. Our other Bratt relatives spent the week with us as well. Matthew, Adam, and Erol had a great time playing with each other. Although we spent most of our time on the beach we were able to pick 20 pounds of blueberries! They were delicious! The boys, both big and little, spent a few evenings racing go carts which was a big hit. I enjoyed reading two great books and hanging out with Sanida and Andrew. It was nice and relaxing.

Southern Indiana was a hot spot for us this summer as well. We made 3 trips down this summer which is more than we have made in the past 2 years! Matthew and Adam enjoyed spending time with Uncle Paul and cousin Ross on the farm. They had a few adventures that they are still talking about. Of course they loved riding the 4-wheeler (mom enjoyed that too!) and sleeping in a tent. The most memorable was getting lost in the woods. We can thank Grandpa Tempel for that! I think they may have learned a few things after that. It was good to spend time with family. Southern Indiana is so beautiful in the summer!

Our annual trip to Holiday World was the other big destination down south. It was a very hot and crowded day but we had a great time and was able to visit with Aunt Lucy for a while. The best part was the huge storm at the end of the day. Buckets of rain soaked us and then the power went out. We were given comp tickets which only meant that we would have to visit again!!! BONUS! A second trip was made at the end of August. It was much cooler and less crowds. We rode every ride in the water park at least once. It was awesome!

We had a good year in 4-H. Matthew was able to pull together his entomology collection and ended up with a blue and an honor!! I was so proud! Blues were achieved in foods and Lego's as well. Adam did great on his mini 4-H projects but he insists that it doesn't count because everyone gets the same ribbon. The boys now think we need to live on a farm so that they can show pigs and goats next year.

School started way too early on August 11th. Matthew is in 4th grade and Adam is in 2nd. They are doing great.

Both boys played Fall Baseball which started in August and just finished yesterday (10-10-10). They both showed much improvement since the beginning of the season. Matthew is turning into a good catcher! They didn't win in the tournament but they had a good time and that is what counts.

I haven't really mentioned Andrew....He has been there providing joy through all our adventures. He has gone from a cute little baby to a cute little toddler. We nicknamed him Monkey when he was born because of his hairy body and his long, thin arms and legs. He is now living up to the name in actions. He climbs EVERYTHING. If you turn around he will be up on the table or counter in seconds. He is constantly running and jumping everywhere! The kid doesn't stop. He is so happy, good, and sweet. He LOVES baseball and is getting good at hitting pitched balls if you can believe that. I will have to post video of it sometime.

Mike is doing good. He continues to write music and teach piano and guitar lessons.

I am well. Trying to keep up with work and extra curricular activities. Work is very busy which makes the days go by too quick. I am back at running after having Andrew. I finished 3 half-marathons this year. I am pretty happy with the results and looking forward to next spring.

So, that wraps up some of the highlights of the past 5 months. I am going to try and make a better effort at keeping this thing up to date. It is hard managing all of these media outlets.

I Am Way Behind

2010-05-25T15:41:00.002-04:00

Sad but true I have not been very good at keeping my blog up to date. I have a goal to be a little better at it now. If work wasn't so busy I might have time to get it done!!!

All is well with the Bratt's. Matthew and Adam are in the middle of their baseball season. We have had crazy weeks of up to 6 games in one week! This is the last week of school and they are very excited to be on break. Not as excited as I am not to have homework!!!!

The summer is shaping up to be busy and fun as well. Matthew is in his first year of 4-H. Of course we have one of those projects that I think will cause us some stress. He loves bugs so he is taking entomology. We really need to get started on the bug collection! Adam is in mini 4-H. Matthew will be going to an art camp for a week and June and they wrap the month up with a fun week of camp at the YMCA.

Andrew is doing great and getting so big. He is the cutest kid around! He is definitely walk (almost running) all over the place. The kid loves to eat too! I will post pictures soon.

Has Anyone Seen My Teeth

2010-01-24T14:01:00.005-05:00

Adam lost one of his front teeth a few weeks ago. He thought it was cool to gross us out with the hanging tooth. Being the big brother (and acting a lot like me) Matthew convinced Adam that he could pull the tooth out. I heard them in the bathroom; Matthew was telling him to be calm and it would be out soon. Not long after that Adam screamed and came out of the bathroom with blood running out of his mouth. No one got to touch the tooth after that. It fell out on it's own the next morning.

GROSS!

A week later the second tooth fell out! You should see him trying to eat apples:)

Doesn't he look so cute!

The Christams Holiday in a Nutshell

2010-01-10T20:10:00.012-05:00

We had a fun-filled two weeks of Christmas this year. It began December 18th, as soon as the boys were off the bus we were in the van headed to St. Louis for Christmas with Mike's Dad and Carol. It was a nice visit and there was enough snow falling to make it very festive but not dangerous for driving.

I took most of the of the time off the week before Christmas and then the whole week after. To start off the fun I took the boys to a Purdue basketball game with my friend Carrie and 3 of her 4 boys. They won and it was fun.

Adam made this awesome sign!

The annual Bratt boys cookie bake was on the 23rd. We baked all day long and made a lot of yummy cookies and candies for the neighbors. I was adventurous this year and made candy cane coffee cakes for the first time. They turned out good. I might have to try it again next year.

Christmas Eve we traveled to Brazil to spend the day with my family. There was plenty of good food and fun. The coolest gift was a marshmallow gun. I am sure Grandma will be finding little marshmallows for a long time. We have band the gun from the house; little marshmallows would not be good for Andrew. It will be an outside toy.

Matthew loved his new boots for the creek.

Matthew and Adam were up at 4:45 a.m. Christmas morning excited to open presents. We managed to get them to wait until 6 to open presents. It is customary for Santa to bring underwear. This year he brought boxers (at the request of Matthew who said it isn't cool to be wearing tighty-whities anymore) and they were very excited. Matthew put his on right away.

Christmas day we drove to Lansing, IL to have Christmas dinner with Mike's mom and her family. It was a smaller group this year but very enjoyable. The boys received way to many gifts but they loved them all.

We decided to stick around for a few days after Christmas. On Saturday we traveled downtown to have lunch at Italian Village which was tradition for Mike when he was young. This is the third year we have done this and I hope to continue the tradition. We also looked at the Marshall Fields windows. The theme this year was the journey of a letter to Santa from the child all the way to Santa. It was really cute. We can't go downtown anymore without the boys wanting to go to the Lego store so we hopped on the train to go to the store and then spent the rest of the afternoon walking along Michigan Avenue. It snowed the entire day and it was really beautiful. Chicago ended up with 8 inches of snow by the end of the day.

We Skipped Over November and Right into December

2009-12-13T20:08:00.004-05:00

I don't even know where the time has gone. Wasn't it just Halloween? At least my blog says so. November was a flurry of activity. My baby, my first born, turned 9 in November. To celebrate Matthew had a sleep-over with a few of his friends. I was nervous about this but it turned out great. I did have to end the fun when I was woke-up at two o'clock by giggles and the patter of feet. They were up again at 7 a.m. and ready for more fun!

Thanksgiving this year was spent at home. YEAH! Karen and Jim hosted at their house which works out great for us since they are about 10 minutes away. I took the opportunity to run in the Drumstick Dash on Thanksgiving morning. John joined me and we had a good time. I hope to do it again next year!

4 out of grandma's 5 boys. Carol and the kids didn't get to come for Thanksgiving so Will is missing from the picture.

The feast!

Of course, it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without Black Friday. Aunt Mary and I were the only ones brave enough to go shopping. We had a great time!

December seems to be passing us by as quickly as November. We are decorated and ready for Christmas. Matthew and Adam were a great help with the decorating this year. This is the last week of school until 2010. They are both looking forward to the break as am I!

The tree in their room.

Our Family Tree....protected from Andrew.

Gingerbread House fun.

Waiting to see Santa.

Check back soon to see the visit with Santa and the rest of December's fun.

Halloween Fun

2009-11-07T14:14:00.004-05:00

We had a fun and festive Halloween evening once again. They boys enjoyed trick-or-treating with Andrew Pickering and his sister Emma and about 200 other kids.

The good looking group.....

Don't they look cute!

My Little Pumpkin...happy as always!

Matthew and Adam did a great job on their pumpkins. No help this year!

Our neighbors looked great.....there was even the scarecrow and lion!

The Force be with you....

Princess Sophia

Monkey Man James...

Baby Mistro

2009-11-04T20:02:00.001-05:00

Andrew has had a lot of changes over the past week....Let's see; where to start.....He has started to crawl everywhere on his hands and knees. No more army crawl. He began to say da, da, da over and over again. Since then he has moved on to cu, cu, cu. He also enjoys screaming very loud. Usually in excitement but he does get mad and scream too. His first tooth began to pop through on Halloween. He has done pretty well with it. I can tell it hurts him though. He loves to stand!!! I think he may start walking early!

Andrew loves playing the piano.

He prefers to stand with assistance of course.

One of Andrew's new talents.....sucking his big toe on the right foot.

Every time I change his diaper the foot goes into the mouth.

He actually sucks on it like it is a bottle or a pacifier....kind of gross!

Happy 7 Months!!!

2009-10-22T20:12:00.001-04:00

My little baby boy is 7 months old!!! I can't believe how fast time has gone. He is really active. Loves crawling all over the place. This week he has learned he can stand up and hold on to the couch. A few other funnies.....he is discovering that he doesn't like peas and green beans so much. Mike was feeding him lunch the other day and Andrew decided he didn't want the peas so he spit them out at Mike. He is also saying bu, bu, bu a lot this week.

A New Room a New House

2009-10-13T07:54:00.002-04:00

In November it will be 5 years that we have been living in our house. I have always hated the wall that was between our family room, where we spend most of our time, and the living room, which was useless and never used. I have talked forever about tearing the wall down but was always afraid of the cost. The plumbing from the boys bathroom went right down the middle of the wall and I assumed there would be structural issues with just tearing a wall down. Now that there are 5 of us and Matthew and Adam are getting bigger and taking up more room I decided we either had to move to a bigger house or tear down the wall. Turns out it is cheaper to tear down a wall than move! If I would have known how great it turned out we would have sucked it up and done this a few years ago!

Here are before pictures......

Family Room

Living Room

During Construction....Nice pipe.

The finished product!!!!! We realized that our couch and chair are way too big and fluffy. They need to go and we will be getting a new couch. Our T.V. stand is a wooden box so I see a new stand in our future as well. Oh yeah, carpet. We need to get new carpet also since we have a strip of carpet missing where the wall used to be.

The view from the family room.

I found a roll of carpet in the basement that we cut and placed were the wall used to be. It is a slight tripping hazard.....but it works for now!

View from the Family Room

View from the front door.

The Past Month

2009-10-05T20:45:00.003-04:00

I realized today it has been a little while since I posted anything on here. It is not like nothing has been going on. Just the opposite which I guess is why I haven't posted in a month.

Let's see....Andrew. He is getting big! He can sit up all by himself now and just last week he started crawling. He likes to get up on his hands and knees and then lunge forward. It is pretty funny to watch. A few days ago he started getting up on his hands and feet! His butt sticks up into the air. He has finally started to sleep through the night with the exception of a few nights this past week. He has a cold and was all snotty. He is a happy little guy and cute as can be!

Andrew's first bike ride. He liked it as long as we were moving.

Andrew loves his bath. He realized last week that he can splash!

My happy little baby....

See, I can sit-up all by myself.

The crawl...

The last weekend in September the museum's had a get-in-free day. Matthew, Adam and I went to Conner Prairie. We live less than 2 miles away from the place but had never been there. It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun walking around looking a things.

Adam making pottery.

We didn't go up into the balloon but they got to pretend that they did (it costs $15!, not worth it for me!)

Walking on stilts took a little practice.

Making clay for the pottery.

Adam is doing well. He really likes school and is doing great with reading and math. He has been busy this fall playing baseball. Tomorrow is the tournament!

Matthew is doing well also. Third grade is being good to him. He really likes his teacher and so do Mike and I. He is also playing baseball and has a tournament tomorrow.

If you can believe it they have already started making their Christmas lists!

Chi Town Weekend

2009-09-16T20:42:00.005-04:00

When it rains it pours. We either have nothing to do for a weekend or a thousand things to cram into 2 days. This past weekend was one of those. Matthew and Adam both had birthday parties to attend on Saturday. Sunday was full with 3 baseball games. On top of all of that I was running a half marathon in Chicago on Sunday. We had to divide and conquer to get everyone where they needed to be and some things just got left out.

I headed to Chicago with Matthew, Andrew, and my cousin Lisa. Mike stayed home with Adam because he really wanted to go to the Laser Tag birthday party. Mike is also an assistant coach for Adam's team so it made sense for them to stay home for that. Matthew really wanted to go to Chicago and decided it was O.K. to miss a party. He would not have been able to go to his game anyway, they were at the same time as Adam's; can't be two places at once!

Packet pick-up for the race was at Navy Pier which was good and bad. It had been years since I had been out there site seeing. Matthew didn't remember the last time he was there because he was too small. He was really excited and took a lot of pictures. The bad part was parking but that is pretty much the case anywhere you go in Chicago. While we were walking around the Pier we found a Koren Product Show that was going on. It was free to the public and sounded funny so we walked around. There were some really cool electric cars that we sat in. There are a lot roomier than I thought they would be. We also saw robotic dogs dancing which was really funny and Matthew got to play some Koren video games. We really wanted to ride the Ferris wheel but the line was REALLY long and we didn't feel like waiting. Overall, Navy Pier was fun!

Sunday morning bright and early (5:00!)we were up to go to the race. Matthew and Lisa came along as my cheering section. They were great and gave me motivation when I needed it! Andrew got to spend some quality time with Aunt Sanida, Uncle John, and Erol. I think he had a great time!

A little stretch before we begin.

I am out there somewhere......

Mile 4...feeling pretty good.

Done!

The race was great and I can't wait to do it again next year. I finished in 2 hours and 27 minutes which I was really happy about considering I didn't really train for this one. I was hoping just to be able to finish so to be able to run the whole thing without having to walk was awesome. Look out next year!

A Relaxing Labor Free Weekend

2009-09-07T17:01:00.004-04:00

When I got home from work on Friday we had no plans for the weekend. I was afraid it might turn out to be a boring weekend. I was wrong....we kept ourselves entertained and had a great, relaxing weekend.

It was the last weekend for the pool so we took advantage of that and spent half the day Saturday at the pool. The pool is heated so it wasn't too cool. After we soaked up some rays we decided to go to the apple orchard and pick apples. We have eight pounds of yummy apples now!

Andrew enjoyed his first trip to the apple orchard by sleeping the entire time. I took some pictures of him by the apples to show that he was there.

Sunday, the boys and I decided to go to San Pedro Lake for the day. It was a beautiful, relaxing day with good food! John and Dad worked on putting a new roof on the shelter by the lake most of the day.

See something wrong with this picture?!?!?! I was having a fit but he wouldn't listen to me. At least he didn't fall (that day)! What you can not see is the ladder is on the boat so it was a moving target. I am sure Dad got a good ab workout from this.

The finished product!

All of the wood scrapes and nails provided hours of fun for Matthew and Adam. They built a wooden boat, signs that are posted on various trees and forts and Matthew made a shelf.

I think this was the first time that we have been there that the boys didn't fish. They were too busy doing other things. We did take a paddle boat ride around the entire lake and got out a few times to explore the woods.

Andrew had a great day hanging out with Grandma and myself. He enjoyed rolling around on a blanket and looking at the leaves and clouds. He was pretty interested in the water also.

It was great to have Monday to hang around home and get some stuff done. All of the neighbors were back from their various trips so all the kids played together most of the day. We had a cul-de-sac picnic at lunch and then a cookout for dinner. What a nice weekend.....now back to work, school. lessons, baseball, homework, and on and on......

Black Eyed Adam

2009-09-05T08:39:00.001-04:00

If you are keeping track this is black eye number 3 in the past two months. The first two Adam gave himself from Wii and running into a chair. This one was a result of a line drive to the eye when playing catch with Mike. The picture doesn't do it justice.

End of August

2009-08-30T13:25:00.001-04:00

We are back into the swing of things....school is going well, we have become accustomed to homework again, and fall baseball is going strong.

Andrew continues to entertain us every day. He is getting really good at rolling around. He will actually sit up by himself for about a minute before he topples over. He has defiantly started the teething process. I am waiting for a tooth any time now. He is a drool bucket!!!

Here are some cute pictures from last week.

Andrew 5 Months

2009-08-23T21:25:00.000-04:00

Sweet Home Chicago

2009-08-16T20:13:00.007-04:00

The last time we were in Chicago was at Thanksgiving and I think we were all having withdrawals so we decided last minute to go up for a visit this past weekend. This was also Andrew's first time in Chicago. It worked out nicely since Mike's dad was also going to be in town for a visit. One stop shopping! On our way though we stopped in Lansing to visit with Ellen and Don, Mike's Nana and Pa, and Aunt Nancy. It was nice to see everyone!

We had a busy day on Saturday. We headed to the Lincoln Park Zoo, one of Matthew and Adam's favorite places. An extra bonus was the Air and Water show taking place on the lake front. So as we are walking through the zoo we could catch glimpses of the air show. Pretty neat! A double-super bonus was the Lego Experience that was at the zoo. Talk about excited kids! There was plenty of Lego fun to be had by all. We completed in a family activity. Our task was to build a tiger out of Lego's in 3 minutes. I think we did a pretty good job. We didn't win though.

Building the tiger.

Can you pick the kids out of the Lego's?

I found these monkey's at the Monkey House

And look at this cute, little monkey!!! (Andrew, not me)
King of the fish tank

Erol's 5th birthday is on Tuesday so we helped him celebrate.

Andrew liked spending time with Grandpa Bratt

If the trip to Chicago wasn't enough the boys started Fall baseball on Sunday so we had to be back by noon. Matthew's team is Notre Dame and Adam is the Nebraska Huskers. I learned quickly that it is starting to get serious for Matthew's age. The players actually get to pitch!!! We were not expecting this and Matthew as a little intimidated at first but he batted great.

Matthew on first

Matthew has double-headers each Sunday. He was pretty tired by the end of the second game. I knew this because when we got home he told me "If anyone comes and wants me to play outside tell them no. I am sick and tired!" If anyone knows Matthew this is very unlike him. That kid will play outside for 12 hours straight if you let him. Sure enough, about 15 minutes after we got home the doorbell rang and our neighbor wanted Matthew to play outside. True to his word he said "No, not right now." After a few hours of rest he was ready to go again.

I didn't get to see Adam's game. Mike took him to it since it was at the same time as Matthew's first game. He said he did really good. Played pitchers helper, second base, and center field and he got one hit. Mike was the pitcher...I think he had a lot of fun doing that!

Where Does the Time Go?

2009-08-13T11:38:00.007-04:00

It has been a little while since I last posted. I was so proud of myself for keeping on top of posting and now....well, what can I say, we have been busy.

Let's see. Andrew first. He is now 4 months and 3 weeks old. He did have his 4 month check-up a few weeks ago. He is growing like a champ. I keep getting the comment that he is chunky. I guess those people don't remember Adam when he was this age. Andrew looks like skin and bones compared to him. At this last appointment he weighed 16 pound 9 ounces (75 percentile) and he was 25 inches long (54 percentile). He is rolling really well now. So well that he was up for a good portion of the night for about a week because he had to keep practicing. Once he got to his belly he would get mad and wasn't able to get to his back. He has started to roll back over from his belly this week which has meant a few sleepless nights while he practices this. I hope he gets tired of this soon! He loves his rice cereal. We have also added peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, squash, and bananas to his diet. No complaints from him so far!

Matthew and Adam enjoyed the last few weeks before school started. They spent one week at YMCA camp which they LOVED! We were told to have a change of clothes for each day and to expect them to come home dirty. I didn't believe that they could get so dirty but after the first day I believed them. Adam went to camp with white socks and came home with muddy brown socks. Each day was something new....faces painted, mud everywhere. They had a great time.

We had a birthday party for Dad who turned 60 on the 11th of August. We rented the bowling alley in Brazil and had about 100 guests. I think everyone had a good time eating and bowling. Dad said he really enjoyed himself and was happy to see everyone there.

I celebrated my 36th birthday, which is the same day as Dad's, in a much quieter fashion. I was actually sick all day with a stomach virus. I slept a lot and laid on the couch. Come to think of it, maybe it wasn't such a bad day!!! Oh well, maybe next year will be more exciting.

The first day of school was August 12th. Matthew is in 3rd grade and Adam is in 1st. Both were excited to get back to see their friends. I think they like have a structured routine also. At least they can not complain about being bored!

Ready, Set, Roll!

2009-07-26T15:39:00.006-04:00

Andrew has done it! He is rolling all by himself as of Saturday. I laid him down under his activity center to make his bottle and when I looked up, he was on his belly. He got so excited that he rolled back over again! I was worried he would roll for the first time while I was at work and I wouldn't get to see it....instead, I was home with him and I still missed it! Since then, he has practiced it a few times. It is making sleeping interesting. He isn't really interesting in sleeping right now and when he does sleep he is contorted on his side with his body all twisted. Once he is in this position he sleeps well, it just takes him some time to get to this position. He has his 4 month check-up on Monday so we will see how big he is getting.

This is the contorted position

This past weekend we had our annual Cul-de-Sac party. It is usually around the 4th of July but no one was home this year so we moved it back a few weekends. The theme was a Luau and it turned out great. Everyone came out in their best Hawaiian attire and the sac was decorated very festive also. There was the limbo and conga line and the Hawaiian kick-ball game. It was a great time!

Even pets were dressed!

Andrew was a cutie-pie in his Hawaiian shirt

The limbo; sort of.....

A better example of the limbo...

Alot of fun activities...

Lazy Days of July

2009-07-21T14:14:00.007-04:00

Summer is moving along at a fast rate of speed. It is hard to believe that the boys will be back in school in only 3 weeks! They have been enjoying the past two weeks at home playing with all the neighbor kids. The creek is a big toy for them. The 4-H fair was this past weekend. Matthew exhibited two projects in mini 4-H; collections and foods. For his collection he took pictures of all of his Star Wars Lego's and made a scrapbook of them. Foods was a breakfast pastry; biscuits rolled into figures 8's dipped in butter, sugar and cinnamon. They were really good!

We also had pictures taken this past week. Hard to believe but Andrew was 4 months old on Monday. He is still as cute as ever. He has a few new tricks. He likes to dig his heels into the ground, lift his butt and scoot. He moved across the floor the other day doing that! He also loves to do this on the changing table....makes it hard to change the diaper! He is just about ready to roll over. He will get his lower body over but can get the shoulder and head. I started to feed him cereal on Sunday. He was not very interested and kept gagging. I tried again on Monday and he did better. We will keep trying!

My little angles!

We had our first Wii injury occur this week. Adam was playing Mario Sluggers Baseball and whacked his eye with the remote. It was black and blue; the pictures do not do it justice. The next day we were at the fair and he was balancing between two chairs and one of the chairs flip and whacked him in the other eye. It swelled really big and turned black and blue. He gave himself two black eyes within two days! Silly kid!

Andrew Getting Bigger and Bigger

2009-07-07T10:02:00.004-04:00

Andrew is growing every second and so darn cute! He is getting really good at making noises and finally found his thumb on Sunday, July 5th. Over the past month he has been constantly trying to stuff both his fists into his mouth. Well, he finally figured out the thumb! I caught him yesterday with both thumbs in his mouth. If you have them, use them! It is hard to say if he is going to give up the pacifier and start sucking his thumb. I hope not! He has also started to swing his legs over when lying on his back. Pretty soon he is going to roll over!

I found him this way one day when I came home from work. He was taking a little cat nap on Daddy's belly. His little butt was in the air, it was so cute!

He is starting to get pretty good head control so we decided to get the exersaucer out for him to play with. I am not sure who enjoyed it more, Matthew and Adam or Andrew. Maybe they all did! Andrew was definitely amused with it and started batting at some of the toys right away.

Can you believe what this thing can do????

This is so exciting!

Andrew is trying really hard to hold his head up as much as possible. I loved how he was looking at his hand in this picture. He is amazed by it.

Here we are at the fire in the back yard. Andrew's first. He really like watching the flames.

Happy 4th of July!!!!

2009-07-06T08:47:00.003-04:00

I can't believe the 4th of July has come and gone! This year is going way too fast... We had a really nice 4th weekend. Friday evening we had our first fire of the year and it didn't disappoint! Of course the main reason for the fire were the s'mores. I think we have discovered the best s'mores around and you have to try it. Instead of using a Hersey bar, use a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup! It is YUMMY!

Saturday was not the best day with all of the rain. It didn't actually start raining until noon at our house so Matthew and I were able to get in a 7-mile bike ride. Matthew called it our Tour de Fishers and wants to do it every year on the 4th of July. We might have to start that tradition. Who knows, we could get a lot of participants and make it an event! Saturday afternoon we headed to San Pedro Lake to hopefully enjoy the lake. Mother Nature was not going to let that happen. It poured down rain all afternoon. We still had a good time visiting with Mom, Dad, John, Aunt Mary, Uncle David, and Carol Meyer who were all in town for the weekend. After a delicious dinner of ribs, corn-on-the-cob, and potato salad we decided to fish in the rain. John, Dad, Matthew and I fished for a few hours. We were soaked but caught a lot of big fish! The rain finally let up around 10:30 so we were able to shoot-off our fireworks. We had a really good display this year.

They didn't want to get cold so the old ladies watched from the kitchen windows.

Sunday was a better day and we fished some more. Mike, Andrew and I went home while the boys stayed to spend another fun-filled week with Grandma and Grandpa.

Our All-Star

2009-07-01T08:17:00.004-04:00

Matthew was a member of the Hamilton Southeastern Sports All-Stars this year. He and two of his other team mates were chosen to play in a double-header that took place Monday night. The first game was really great. Matthew played left field and second base. He hit awesome and got an RBI at every at bat. They won 11 to 23. The second game could have gone a little better. He was catcher for a few innings and some outfield. His hitting was still really good but the other team was really on their game. Matthew's team lost 12 to 38! He didn't care...his comment was "It is O.K., I had fun and we all get the same size trophy!". At least he wasn't upset! The trophy was declared the best trophy he has ever received and had to be placed in a special place. It is on our mantel along with his hat and an All-Star baseball he received from his team the Pirates.

Life is at Beach...at San Pedro Lake

2009-06-28T12:29:00.005-04:00

Another week of the summer has flown by....Matthew and Adam have been at Grandma and Grandpa Tempel's since last Sunday. Did they have a blast!!!! Their days were spent swimming, fishing, eating, fishing, eating, fishing....not a bad life. I think mom enjoyed it?!?!? She spent her days sitting in the heat on the dock making sure her little angles were entertained. I hope that one day they appreciate and realize how great of a childhood they have. My summers were certainly not as exciting and packed full of activities as theirs are. I did get to enjoy a little of the good life at San Pedro over the weekend. It was time to bring Matthew and Adam back home to reality for a week. While we were there we helped Carol with a yard sale, visited with Mom, Dad, Aunt Mary and Barb, and fished. We had a great fish fry Friday night. Matthew and Adam think it is the best thing in the world to eat the fish that you have caught. They couldn't wait to share it with me. It was good. There are plenty of blue gill, sun fish, and cropper to catch. Every once in a while, if you are really good, you will get a bass. That is what Matthew is after. He has caught a few and it is a really big deal when he does.

It is Freedom Festival time here in Fishers which means a fun Festival. We spent Sunday afternoon at the festival watching dogs catch Frisbees, making crafts, shooting water balloons and for course, the parade. Sunday evening we enjoyed a great fireworks display. I was worried how Andrew would do with the noise but the little trooper didn't even wake-up!

When is this parade going to start already!!!

Speaking of the little monkey....he is now 14 weeks old and getting bigger every minute. I think he was a little bored this past week with Matthew and Adam being gone. There was no one in his face, touching him all the time, being goofy for him. He seems to be really happy they are back. He has started to drool like a faucet and discovered that he can turn all that spit into fun sounds blowing bubbles. He is also getting really good at holding up his head while he is on his belly. He almost has the rollover....He is still amazed by his toys and is starting to use the ones on his activity gym as a punching bag.

Andrew's first parade....

Tonight is Matthew's All-Star game. I will keep you updated on how he does!

Andrew's Baptism

2009-06-21T16:34:00.005-04:00

First of all, Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.

Grandpa Tempel and the boys

Today was Andrew's baptism. It was a very nice ceremony and the little guy slept through the whole thing. He is so sweet! After church we had a great lunch prepared by mom, of course. There is a nice new park with a community building by our house which can be rented out for parties and events. It has two awesome playgrounds and a splash pad out in front of the building. I decided to rent the building for the baptism to give everyone more space (30 in our house at First Communion was a little crowded) and let the kids have a great time in the splash park. It was a huge success. We will be having all of our parties at this place from now on!

Now we are home and I have everything unpacked. Mom and Dad have taken Matthew and Adam home with them for the week so it is just Mike, Andrew and I at home this week. It to get some stuff done and RELAX for a little....back to work tomorrow :(

This looks like trouble.....

In other Andrew news....he turned 3 months old on Saturday. He is really starting to have fun with his hands batting at things and trying to grab them. He got a hold of my necklace in church today. This cooing continues to evolve and I noticed today he was try to blow raspberries.....he is getting big so quickly.

What a phine weekend....

2009-06-20T19:09:00.004-04:00

We are having a great weekend. We kicked it off on Friday with our neighbors and some friends at the Phish concert. A good time was had by all. It was good to see them again. One of the highlights of the concert was thunderstorm warnings and 60 mph winds right after the first set. The concert was postponed for an hour and when we left at 12:15 a.m. they were getting ready for the encore. We were lucky to have pavilion seats so we didn't have go to our car and stayed dry. I haven't been out of the house that late at night in a long time and it was a lot of fun. Luckily, Andrew slept until 4:30 a.m. and I was able to get some sleep.

Middle aged Phish phans on the way to the concert in the 2008 Town and Country Minivan

Tailgating at the concert.

Today (Saturday) has been busy preparing for Andrew's baptism which is tomorrow. Mom has been here all week so there really wasn't much that I had to do. Matthew also had his second playoff game this afternoon. Unfortunately, he lost 18-22 but he did awesome and still gets to play some more baseball in the All Star games.

Great job Matthew!

What a team!

Andrew 12 Weeks

2009-06-15T15:44:00.003-04:00

Andrew has made it to the 12 week mark and his personality is really starting to come out. He has really started to coo and babble this week. Of course there are plenty of smiles. He seems to think Matthew and Adam are hilarious. He is still eating like a little piggy; about ever 3 hours. I try to get him to wait a little longer but he is not very patient and will throw a good fit. He is sleeping pretty good. For the most part he gets up around 1 and 4 ever night. There were two nights, while on vacation, that he slept until 5:30 and 4:30. That didn't last long and now we are back to being up twice a night. It is hard work growing!

Andrew 11 weeks

How cute!

I love this picture!

Our funny little Monkey....

Testing out the Bumbo.

He is enjoying his blankie when he takes naps.

Vacation Wednesday and Thursday

2009-06-11T22:04:00.002-04:00

We are certainly having fun! On Wednesday, Matthew and I went for a 2 hour bike ride on the beach. It was a beautiful morning. Matthew loves wildlife; we saw some cool birds and found a few horseshoe crabs. While we were out Adam and Mike tested out the new Mario Party 8 game Adam received for his b-day. Yes, we brought the Wii with us on vacation.... The remainder of the day was spent at the beach. We packed the cooler and had a picnic lunch at the beach. Five hours later we were hot, sandy and tired and headed back to the condo. The fun wasn't over though. Mike, the boys, Ellen, and I went to Pirates Island for a round of miniature golf. Matthew won this time!

Mike golfed for the last time this vacation early Thursday morning. While he was golfing Matthew enjoyed a long bike ride with Nana. The rest of the day we played at the pool because it was way too hot to sit at the beach for another day. We did make at trip to the beach in the evening for a beautiful walk and sunset. It was the best part of the whole vacation! Now, it is time to pack and prepare for the journey home. We have to be out of here by 10 a.m. Friday....

Happy Birthday Adam!!!!

2009-06-09T21:42:00.004-04:00

To finish up yesterday's adventures....we spent the afternoon at the beach which was, once again, great. For our evening fun Mike and I took the boys out for dinner at San Miguel's Mexican restaurant. It was very good. After dinner we played miniature golf at Adventure Cove. It was a fun course and the boys played great although Dad won. The worst part about the place is that it also had an arcade....I do not like arcades. The boys wasted money playing games but they had fun. Adam declared Monday this Birthday Eve.

Today is my little Peanut's 6th birthday. It is hard to believe that is now 6 years old!!!!! Of course he had a great day. We started it off by watching Erol in tennis lessons (Adam didn't want to take lessons on his b-day). The rest of the morning was spent at the pool. Matthew, Adam, and Erol had befriended a few kids and are having fun playing pool games. Mike and John play golf at Harbour Town today so Sanida and I took the kids to South Beach Marina to have lunch at The Shipwreck of the Salty Dog. It was very good. After lunch we took the boys to the Salty Dog shop to pick out one thing they wanted. The shop is full of t-shirts, hats, and other souvenirs; neat stuff. The boys, however, decided they wanted dog bandannas....to wear on their heads and be pirates. So we walked out of the store with a do-rag for each. They love them and actually look pretty cute. By the time we got back to the condo Mike and John were back from golf so we spent the afternoon at the pool again. Adam finished his birthday with a cookout, miniature golf at Pirates Island and cake and ice cream. What a day!

In other news.... Andrew slept until 5:00 this morning!!!!!!!! You would think that I would have gotten a good nights slept but, no. I kept waking up worried that something was wrong with him!

Vacation Monday

2009-06-08T16:54:00.002-04:00

We enjoyed a nice Sunday evening meal of snapper and shrimp. Yum! After dinner we went to the pier by the lighthouse to try our luck at crabbing again. Matthew is obsessed with this, he would go crabbing all day if we let him. We didn't catch anything this time but it did give us an excuse to have an ice cream treat again.

Today, Monday, has been another busy day. Matthew, Mike, Adam and I enjoyed a bike ride around Sea Pines. The highlights of the ride included the Baynard Ruins, a tour of the Harbour Town golf course holes, and a HUGE alligator.

Sanida, Ellen and I enjoyed a late morning tennis lesson after the bike ride. I LOVED it! I hope to go to more lessons this week. After the lessons, the entire family headed to the beach for the afternoon.

Tomorrow is Adam's birthday so we are going to do what Adam wants. I am sure it will involve the beach and pool at some point. More to come tomorrow!

Another Day, More Fun

2009-06-07T15:47:00.003-04:00

We ended yesterday (Saturday) with a cookout and crabbing. Our first crabbing adventure of the year turned out to be more work than it was worth. First, we brought two large pieces of chicken with us. The first piece was lost at the bottom of the ocean within minutes. Then the next attempt and the crabbing next got stuck on something at the bottom and came off the line. We lost the net at the bottom!!!! So, we all walked to the general store to get a new net. After we got back to the pier we found our first piece of chicken floating in the water. Our first catch was a piece of chicken!!!!! We stayed out there for about 20 minutes and only caught one blue crab and one hermit crab. It was the blue crabs lucky day....he got sent back into the ocean for next time. We finished off the evening with ice cream at the tower.

The group going out for an evening of crabbing

Adam, Andrew, and Erol waiting to catch blue crabs

Ice cream treat after

Andrew, Adam, and Nana

Sunday started off nice and sunny. Sanida and I enjoyed an early morning walk/run on the beach. After we returned we loaded up the whole family and we spent the entire day at the beach. Andrew was a trooper. He had his little tent and an umbrella and slept all day! I hope he continues to be such a great baby. Matthew, Adam and Erol built a great castle with the help of Mike and there was plenty of wave surfing. After they got tired of that they started hunting for wild life. We now have three sand dollars that are living with the hermit crab on the deck. Mike and Ellen are getting in a round of golf late this afternoon and the rest of us are preparing for another great cookout. More to come tomorrow!

Our beach fort

Picnic at the beach...

Vacation Day 1

2009-06-06T14:28:00.004-04:00

We made it to Hilton Head in the middle of a huge rain storm. The rest of the day was cloudy and rainy but we managed to get some pool time in. We also enjoyed an evening at Salty Dog. I welcomed the rain; it gave us a chance to unpack and go to the grocery store. The boys are having a great time with Erol. Andrew did great on the car ride again; he slept the whole time.

Shrimp feast at the Salty Dog on Friday....

We have been busy today, day 2. Mike and John golfed while Sanida and I took the boys on a beach walk. The intent was to walk along the beach and find shells. We were not there 10 minutes and all three boys were soaked. We made them ride home in their underware and they thought that was really cool. Andrew enjoyed the walk by sleeping in the Baby Borjn. We also have spent some time at the pool and went on a very long bike ride with Nana. Matthew's mission is to see how many alligators he can see this week. So far he has seen 11. Who knows what we are going to do next!

The boys on the beach....dry

The boys after the walk on the beach....wet.

Andrew's first walk on the beach...he slept.

Matthew, Adam, Andrew and I went for a bike ride

One of many alligators

Let the Vacation Begin

2009-06-05T06:57:00.003-04:00

We have left for our annual trip to Hilton Head Island. Yesterday was a travel day. Our mission; drive until we needed gas or Andrew woke up. Andrew did awesome and slept the whole time!!!! We finally made our fist stop 4 hours after starting out because we needed gas and we were hungry. I had to wake Andrew up to eat and then he was back to sleep. He really liked sleeping in the car!!! YEAH. We made it to Ashville, NC for the night and are staying at a nice Hampton Inn. The boys got to swim last night and we might take a dip this morning before we start driving again. Today is on to HHI!!!!

Andrew's first night in a hotel....

Schools Out, Schools Out.....

2009-06-01T17:01:00.005-04:00

Last Thursday was Matthew and Adam's last day of school for the year. They were very excited that they could sit anywhere they wanted to on the bus. It is official, we have a 3rd grader and a 1st grader now.

To start the summer off right we had a busy Friday. After a morning of garage sales (which Matthew and Adam love) we picked fresh strawberries.

Adam's birthday is June 9th and every year we are in Hilton Head for his birthday. One would think that this would be a pretty great birthday; beach, bike rides, dolphin sight-seeing, miniature golf.....not Adam. He was very upset that he would be in Hilton Head again for his birthday this year. He wanted a party with some of his friends. So, on Friday Adam and 7 of his friends had an awesome afternoon playing laser tag and video games. They are still talking about how much fun it was.

The gang...

Laser tag rocks!!!!

Happy Early Birthday Adam!

Our Little Monkey turned 10 weeks old this week. He has started giggling at us when we sing to him. He is really smiley when you talk to him. He is soooooo darn cute!!!!

Weekend Fun and Andrew Week 9

2009-05-26T08:58:00.007-04:00

Last week was great. Sunny days and warm weather; what more can you ask for? Adam and I took advantage of the nice weather and went for bike rides after he got home from school every day. The nice weather also meant for nice baseball games in the evenings. Matthew's team may not be winning many games but he is doing really great. He told me this week he wants to be a MLB player when he grows up. Wednesday was James' 1st birthday! We celebrated with cake and ice cream at the Beeson's.

John was here on Friday to start the holiday weekend early and to play golf with Mike. He hasn't won a game against John in a long time and he was sure he was going to do it this time. One free lunch later and John is still the winner.

Saturday was James' birthday party at Gymboree and Karen's birthday. All the kids had fun playing. After the party the boys and I went to Resort Tempel for the Memorial Day weekend. The weekend was spent fishing and swimming in the lake. Matthew and Adam both learned to get around in the row boat by themselves. They love it and Andrew enjoyed his first overnight trip.

The big birthday boy.

While sitting by the lake I decided it needed a name. John, Dad, and I spent the weekend trying to find the right name for the lake. Some of the names we came up with....Pine Tree Lake (boring), Lake Pinus (the Latin name for pine tree but we couldn't go with that one, it sounded too much like penis and the boys thought that was great), Finger Lake (if you look on Google Earth the lake looks like a hand with fingers), Falanges Lake (that was the best one so far). There was also one name that John came up with but we won't post it here....you can ask him. After researching for a few hours, dad found documentation that area was once an underground mine in the late 1800's and early 1900's called the San Pedro Mine. He also found that the lake was a strip mine from 1942 to 1943 with no name. So the name we came up with......San Pedro Lake. There are a lot of little coves. Matthew is taking on the responsibility of naming all the coves. So far we have turtle cove, bass cove, and river cove.

John and Dad fishing from the dock at San Pedro Lake.

Andrew is doing great. He is now 9 weeks old and so cute! He likes to smile a lot, especially if you talk to him. He was having some digestive issues and acid reflux. We switched him to soy formula and he is doing much better now. He can actually lay down on his back! He had his two month doctor's appointment today and now weighs 12.5 pounds (68%) and is 22 inches long (38%).

Andrew at 9 weeks. He is so cute!

Ah, but he does get mad pretty easy. This is the sad warm-up to a good fit. Notice the puckered lip. It gets me every time.

That soon turns into a really good scream. Purple and blue face and all.

His brothers love him so much!

Getting ready to go fishing. Andrew didn't think much of it but he did like hanging around in the carrier.

Only 2 more days of school left!!!!

Andrew at 8 weeks

2009-05-18T10:13:00.004-04:00

Andrew is now 8 weeks old! While that is exciting it is also sad for me...it means I only have 4 weeks left of maternity leave and then back to work.

Andrew did pretty well this week. He did have one night that he slept from 10:00p.m. to 4:30 a.m.!!!! That was really exciting. It didn't last though. He made up for it the next night by waking up 4 times!!!! He must be going through a growth spurt right now. He wants to eat every 2 hours. If we try to get him to hold-out for three hours it isn't pretty. He is pretty good at screaming to the point that his face is turning bright red with a hint of purple.

He does throw a good fit...

He is as cute as ever and starting to smile a lot more. He has been discovering that he has hands and will sometimes reach out to grab something. Matthew and Adam still adore him and want to help as much as possible.

John was here this past weekend to run the Geist 1/2-marathon. He did really well, finishing in 1 hours and 52 minutes. To celebrate we had a really nice cookout with Karen and Jim Saturday evening.

Only 7 more days of school left and then the fun really begins!!!!

First Communion and Mother's Day Week

2009-05-11T10:20:00.009-04:00

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms. We had a great Mother's Day/First Communion weekend. On Wednesday Adam, Andrew and I traveled to Brazil to pick-up mom. Mom was great with helping to get everything ready for the First Communion. It wasn't all work though. We spent a fair amount of time shopping and hitting yard sales. Mom also got to see Matthew and Adam play baseball. It was a lot of fun. Having mom here also allowed me to get some things done without having to stop to feed Andrew.

Sunday was a big day for Matthew. First Communion was at 1:00 with a party at our house later. Matthew looked so handsome and grown up!!! The party was really nice. Thank you to all of our family who had to travel to share the day with us.

Grandparents

Godparents- Karen and John

Big Nana and Nancy were able to celebrate with us.

Andrew is now 7 weeks old! I can't believe how fast it is going and how big his is getting. Big events this week.....Andrew slept from 8:30 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. one night!!!! He is doing pretty good at only waking up once during the night.

Andrew at 7 weeks....

We had a photo session this past week to make Mother's Day gifts for all of the Mother's at our party. These are a few of the favorites....

Adam's First Baseball Game

2009-05-03T13:56:00.003-04:00

Adam had his first "official" baseball game yesterday. He played ball for the YMCA last year but he said that wasn't real baseball. Now he is in real baseball. It looked like he might not have his first game...it was supposed to be at 9 a.m. We got a call from the coach that the fields were too wet and they game was going to be cancelled. Adam was very upset. A little while later the coach called back and said the fields would be ready later in the day. So the game got moved to 2 p.m. Adam did a great job. His first hit was a long shot to center field. He played short stop and first base. Mike was excited to discover yesterday that he can switch hit. We might have a ball player on our hands!

The Last Two Weeks

2009-04-28T08:43:00.004-04:00

We have had a lot going on the past two weeks. Since the weather is nice I spend what free time I have outside rather than on the computer. We have finished our mulching and I have started planting the garden and flowers. It is raining today to I am on the computer!

We have had visitors over the past two weeks. John and Erol came to visit. Matthew and Adam love it when Erol comes. They introduced Erol to the creek. Matthew and Adam love to play in the creek. I don't think Erol enjoyed it as much. Their idea of fun is walking up and down the creek in boots looking for animals. Erol tried really hard but fell a few times. Playing in the creek didn't last too long. They did have a lot of fun playing dress-up and super heroes.

Andrew is doing well. He is so sweet! He isn't sleeping too great yet; I hope that will come soon. He likes to eat every 2-3 hours and it shows. He a doctor's appointment last Thursday and he weighed 9lbs 2oz! He has made it to the 33 percentile for his age.

Andrew 4 weeks

Andrew 5 weeks (chubby cheeks!)

YUM!

Opening day for baseball was Saturday. Matthew and Adam had team pictures; Adam got to run the bases as his name was announced over the loud speaker and Matthew had a game. He did great! His first hit of the year was an RBI double. He played 1st base and did very well there. He likes 1st base. Adam has his first game this coming Saturday and he can't wait!

Too Cute Not To Share

2009-04-15T10:56:00.001-04:00

Happy Easter and Andrew week 3!

2009-04-13T13:43:00.006-04:00

Andrew is now 3 weeks old! He is starting to get into somewhat of a routine and is getting bigger every day. Matthew and Adam were on Spring Break the whole week so that made it pretty interesting around the house. The weather wasn't the best so we had to spend most of the time indoors. We did make a trip to the library to get books and I made them go to the grocery store with me just to get out of the house. On the few nice days that we had, they spent their time outside cleaning the garbage out of the creek and getting muddy. They loved it but I am tired of muddy clothes.

Thursday was the most exciting day of the week. The weather was nice, Karen and the kids came by for lunch and to celebrate Easter with us and John was also here to play golf with Mike. Karen also brought us dinner so I didn't have to cook! Thanks!

Dude Da' Bunny!

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter. We did, although it was not our typical Easter. Since Andrew is still so new and little the Dr. recommended that we not participate in large family gatherings or take him to public places that might expose him to unwanted germs. I decided that we better listen to his advice so we stayed home. I did make a nice lunch and we spent some time outside. In the evening we had a cook-out, egg hunt, and egg toss with our neighbors the Clayton's. Everyone had a lot of fun.

The boys are back in school this week; YEAH! I don't know what I am going to do with myself!

Week 2 with Andrew

2009-04-05T11:50:00.004-04:00

Andrew had another great week. His umbilical cord fell off on Sunday so we gave him his first bath Monday evening. Matthew and Adam were very excited for it. I thought that Andrew would scream since he doesn't like getting his diaper changed or the wet wipes but he loved the bath and was very calm.

Tuesday was Andrew's 1 week check-up. He gained 10 oz. in 5 days! He weighed 6lbs. 12 oz. at the appointment. He is in the 10th percentile for weight which is up from 6th percentile and 3rd for head and length. Still a little guy.

We had more visitors this week. Tammy stopped by to see Andrew on Tuesday and brought along some food and gifts. Thanks Tammy! Our next door neighbors brought us dinner on Wednesday night. It was awesome and I am starting to get spoiled. I haven't actually cooked a meal in weeks!

Matthew and Adam started baseball practices this week. They both had practice twice this week which meant that Andrew and I sat in the van 4 nights this week while they practiced; fun. Matthew is on the Pirates and Adam the Diamondbacks. The season starts April 25th.

Spring break also started for the boys on Thursday. I am not really sure what we are going to do the whole week since the weather is supposed to be bad. We did visit the Brown's on Saturday; that might be the most exciting thing we do all week. The boys had a great time playing and we were introduced to the Brown's new hobby of geocaching. It was a lot of fun and I think we are going to have to start playing..... If you have no idea what geocaching is you can go the website at http://www.geocaching.com/. I had never heard of it until yesterday.

After two years of requesting, I finally got my raised garden installed on Saturday. Mike and Joe worked all afternoon to get the bed just right. Now I need to get soil and start planting!

Matthew and Adam can not get enough of Andrew. They are constantly kissing him on the head and talking to him. We will see how long that lasts!

Andrew's First Week

2009-03-27T13:29:00.005-04:00

Andrew has had a good first week home. We have been dealing with jaundice this week which has meant he has spent all of his time on a UV blanket and we have had daily trips to the hospital for weight and bilirubin checks. We are becoming pros at that. The good news is the levels had started to come back down as of yesterday. We are waiting to here today's results to make sure they don't go back up.

It worked out o.k. since we also had to make a few trips to the store for things that we were not prepared for. Preemie clothes were the first thing needed. All of his newborn clothes were too big, the poor little guy was swimming in his clothes. I also has to start supplementing with formula and we didn't have nipples for the bottles. You kind of need those.

Mom has been here all week so and it has been great! We are eating good, the house is the cleanest it has ever been, and Matthew and Adam are getting special attention. I hope they don't get used to having a nice warm snack for them when they get home from school!

Matthew's excitement for Andrew spread to this class. All of his classmates made cards for Andrew. They were so cute!!!

Here are a few pictures from week one.

He is a little yellow here...

Matthew loves being the biggest brother

Adam loves being the big brother

He has his eyes open!

Aunt Carol came to visit

Introducing.....Andrew Thomas Bratt

2009-03-22T16:46:00.006-04:00

Andrew Thomas Bratt

6 pounds 2 ounces

18.5 inches long

Well, I guess it wasn't false labor after all. As I was typing my blog on Friday I started having contractions. That was at 9:30 a.m. I called my doctor and he told me to come into his office so he could check me out. We left our house at 10:30. At that time the contractions were pretty mild. By the time we got to the doctors office at 10:45, I was in a tremendous amount of pain and surprise, dilated to 5 cm! They got me in a wheel chair and ran me over to labor and delivery. Everything went very, very quickly from there and I had Andrew at 11:42 a.m. No time for any drugs. It was an experience that I think I will be glad that I experienced but do not want to ever do again!

Even though he was 4 weeks early he was pretty healthy. He did spend the first day in the NICU because of low sugar levels. They said that is common for preemies. Since then he has been great. Matthew and Adam are so excited and keep fighting to hold him.
Despite the delivery, I feel great. No pain or discomfort. I feel better today than I did the day after I finished the 1/2 marathon last year.

We came home from the hosptial today (Sunday) and Grandma Tempel is here for the week to spoil all of us. She brought enough food to feed our whole cul-de-sac!

Here are a few more pictures to enjoy!

False Alarm

2009-03-20T09:32:00.003-04:00

We got to take a trial run to the hospital yesterday. I think we did pretty good. It started Wednesday night around 2 a.m. I woke-up with back pain and some minor cramping. This lasted for 4 hours. By 6 a.m. I was felling better. I had a regularly scheduled dr. appointment so I went and told him what had been going on. He checked my cervix and I was 1.5 cm dilated but not close to being effaced and he sent me on my way.

I felt pretty good all morning until 1:30 and I started having contractions in my back coming around to my belly. I let this go on for 2 hours while I uncomfortably worked. By 3:30 the contractions were more regular and getting very uncomfortable so I went home to take a hot bath and rest. I did that for about an hour and nothing changed so I called the doctor. They told me to come in when the contractions were 5 minutes apart and painful. So Mike got the boys off the bus and we all packed our bags and headed out the door. Needless to say, there was a lot of traffic and I was in a lot of pain. Everyone was very quiet.

Once we arrived at labor and delivery they put me in triage and checked everything out. I had dilated to 2 cm and was about 75% effaced. The doctor sent me walking for 2 hours and then checked me again. This time I was a little over 2 cm. I couldn't believe it, it sure felt like I had progressed more than that.

While I was walking, Mike took the boys to Aunt Karen's house for the evening. By the time he came back I was exhausted and they didn't want to send me home just yet so they put me in my own room and gave me a nice little cocktail of morphine and some other drug. They called it the relaxation therapy. It was very nice!!! I was out within 20 minutes and was dead weight. I would sometimes wake up feeling contractions or hearing something but I couldn't move and didn't care. My instructions were to sleep until I felt very strong contractions or until I woke-up on my own. I woke-up around 1:30 and the nurses checked everything out. My contractions has stopped!!!!!!! They gave me some Ambien sent me home.

Needless to say, I was starving. I had only eaten a blueberry muffin and a banana the whole day. We stopped by Stake N Shake at 3:00 a.m. and I inhaled a burger, fries, milkshake, and a diet coke! YUM. By the time I got to bed the Ambien was working and I slept great until 8 a.m. which puts us pretty much to present time. I am still really groggy and have started to have contractions again. I am not falling for this trick this time! We might have a baby at home, get the towels and hot water!

Matthew and Adam were upset this morning to find out the baby wasn't here yet.

Big E, Little e what Begins with E....

2009-03-14T08:40:00.002-04:00

When I was 5 weeks pregnant I had my first visit with my Dr. Everything went well and they did all of the usual tests including a blood test. A few days later I get a call from the doctor. He tells me everything looks great and that I am really healthy, BUT my blood work came back positive for a anti-large E antibody. Great I thought, what does that mean? He scheduled an appointment for me with Internal Fetal Medicine High Risk and a Genetic Counselor for the same week but told me not to worry. Yeah right! Worry is my middle name. In the meantime I start to do my own research on the Internet and did not found out much.

Mike and I met with the genetic counselor and the doctors at high risk and they tried to explain the whole anti-large E antibody. So here it is....Basically, my blood cells carry an ee protein. Some where along the way my blood was exposed to blood that has a Ee protein. Since I have never had a blood transfusion they assume my exposure came from my pregnancy with Adam. They said that most likely, Mike has a Ee protein. Matthew most likely has a ee protein since the antibody did not show up when I was pregnant with Adam. Adam, however, probably has the Ee protein and when I delivered him our blood mixed and I developed this antibody to large E.

They went on to explain that if the baby has a Ee protein in his blood then my body would start to produce antibodies and attack. The anti-large E antibody can affect the baby inutero by destroying the red blood cells and causing anemia. Which in turn could cause all kinds of other problems. There isn't really any solution to this but to monitor the levels of antibodies in my blood on a regular basis. So that is what I have been doing. I am very fortunate that everything has been going great with that. They titer my blood every 3 weeks to see if the levels of antibody are increasing. The levels did elevate to a trace amount at about 15 weeks but have not changed since then. I am assuming that this baby also has the ee protein so my body isn't attacking him. If my levels would have increased then there would have been inutero blood transfusions and an early delivery. We are very blessed this didn't happen.

It doesn't end there....last week I had my blood drawn and they ran their tests. The doctor informs me that my anti-large E levels are great BUT they have found another antibody in my blood. It is called BG. The great thing about this one is that no one knows anything about how this antibody affects pregnancy!!! Not my doctor, the high risk doctors, the hematologists...... Apparently they are always finding new antibodies and lab testing is becoming more sensitive and for some reason they found it this time. This sent us back to the high risk doctors last Friday where they did a very extensive ultrasound to look for problems. They told us they can't find anything and he looks to be healthy! If they find out anything about this antibody they will let me know. At least I only have a few more weeks!!!!

Weekend Fun at Resort Tempel

2009-03-08T16:56:00.005-04:00

Since the weather was going to be so nice and I am not going to be able to travel soon, the boys, Lisa, and myself went to Mom and Dad's for the day on Saturday. My intent was to relax and fish but I know that is never the case. There is always something that needs to be done outside. It is not a big deal since we all love to be outside. Well, this time it was pine cones. Lots and lots and lots of pine cones. A big storm and knocked down thousands of pine cones all over the front and back yard. Matthew, Adam, Grandpa, Lisa, and I spent at least 4 hours picking up pine cones. Oh yeah, Carol did come and help for some of the back yard. The boys loved it because they got paid $1 for each wheel barrel full of cones. Bribery if you ask me....I never got paid when I was a kid! We did manage to have some time to go out on the boat and fish a little. Fishing wasn't good and it was too windy for the boat. We still had fun though. The best part of the day was mom's fried chicken and german potatoe salad!!!!!! That made all of the pine cones totaly worth it!

Baby Update.....

2009-03-06T07:27:00.003-05:00

Just a little baby update for those who are following along. I am 35 weeks today....I had Adam at 35 weeks if anyone is keeping track. I am feeling pretty good though. I was having some pretty strong contractions and cramping for a few days last month so the Dr. started doing non-stress tests twice a week. Well, for that reason and the fact that I am OVER 35! Those were going really well until Monday and the little guy wouldn’t cooperate! His heart rate dropped to 60 bpm for a few seconds and he wasn’t moving as much as they would have liked so they did an ultrasound for amniotic fluid levels. They are on the low end of normal. He told me to drink even MORE water than I already am…..I am in the bathroom 30 times a day! The same day that I had the bad test and ultrasound I got freaked out. I was sleeping and woke up to go to the bathroom. He moves all night long and I usually don’t fall back to sleep until I feel him kick again. Well, that evening he would not move. I did everything, poked, shook, drank cold water, drank juice, ate, played loud music….nothing. This went on for 45 minutes and then I called the Dr. They had me go to the hospital were they did another non-stress test. There was a heart beat but he still would not move. After four glasses of cranberry juice, a lot of poking, and 2 hours he finally started to make some movement so they sent me home. The rest of the week went pretty well. I had another non-stress test today. The baby looked great they said but I was having a lot of contractions. Which I could have told them because they have been really hurting the past two days. Don't worry, the Dr. checked...I am not dilated and the cervix is high and firm. Sounds nice doesn't it! He told me I needed to take it easy. I had been on my feet walking around campus for various reasons for the past two days pretty much non-stop. That is most likely why I was having these contractions. I do plan on taking it easy this weekend. We are headed to Brazil to "the resort" (mom and dad's) for some fishing, boating and relaxing.

Adam was busy with the camera again. This is the belly at 32 weeks.

Have a good weekend!!!!

John turns the Big 34

2009-03-04T08:03:00.005-05:00

Since we were all together this weekend for Christian's memorial service we decided to celebrate life also. After the service we had a nice luncheon and celebrated John's birthday which is coming up this Friday. Karen baked her now famous cupcake cake and it was delicious.

Sophai didn't feel well but she was still able to eat a cupcake.

Will doesn't pass up any food!

Christmas in February????

2009-02-22T19:35:00.007-05:00

We were finally able to celebrate Christmas with Mike's mom and step-dad this weekend. Bad weather and busy weekends kept pushing our celebrate further away from Christmas. At least it was close to the 25th of some month! Matthew and Adam decided we needed to put up some decorations so we had a small tree and some lights. We received many great gifts from Nana and Pa, Nancy and Bob, and Big-Nana and Big-Pa. Thank you!!!!

Merry Christmas....like the tree?

I loved my gifts!

Mike never has to be clothes thanks to his family!

Adam looks handsome in his new sweater.

The big gift!!!

Goof ball.

Another exciting adventure for the weekend was teaching Nana and Pa how to play Wii. Nana loved the tennis! It was a lot of fun.

Nana Hola-Hooping

Nana and Adam playing tennis.

Nana and Pa playing tennis.

Oh yeah....Mike celebrated his birthday again also!

Happy Birthday Miss Sophia!

2009-02-21T08:37:00.007-05:00

My little godchild turned two this past week. There were two celebrations. Last Saturday, family and friends gathered to wish Sophia a Happy Birthday. Karen let Sophia pick out the food for the party which was awesome! McDonald's cheeseburgers (on my craving list), macaroni and cheese (also on my craving list) and grapes (not so much....).

The Birthday Princess

It was all about Dora....

Yum! Cake and Ice cream.

The Fairy wings were a big hit.

Sophia and her wonderful godparents.

Pretty, happy Faith watching Sophia open her presents.

Matthew kept James entertained.

Maestro Will

On the official Birthday, the boys and I helped Sophia celebrate again with cake and ice cream.

Sibling Class

2009-02-17T20:26:00.001-05:00

Matthew and Adam had a sibling class at the hospital this evening to help prepare for the baby. They learned how to put diapers on their superheros, how to hold a baby, how it is important to wash their hand before touching the baby and many other things. We also got to tour the maternity ward. The rooms are really nice and they are hoping that they get to stay over night with me!

Matthew diapering Mr. Incrediable

Adam was good at getting the clothes on the baby.

Adam got to practice holding the baby.

Matthew was good at holding the baby.

The Bed is Up

2009-01-31T19:43:00.003-05:00

The boys and I didn't have much to do this morning so we decided to put the baby bed up to see what it would look like and to make sure all the pieces were there. I bought it at a yard sale this fall. It works great! Matthew and Adam had fun taking pictures during the process. I have left all of the butt poses out to spare everyone.

Adam wanted a belly picture.

We caught a wild animal.

It is finished. Now I need to empty boxes of clothes and clean-up the room.

Gentlemen Start Your Engines

2009-01-26T08:26:00.004-05:00

Matthew's pinewood derby turned out to be successful; he received a trophy that was bigger than last years! He won the prize for the most creative design in the Wolf Den. Mike and I were excited that the car actually made it all the way down the track and across the finish line. There were a few cars that didn't do that....Over all his car didn't do too bad; he finished 3rd in all of his races.

The Most Creative Design

The Competition

The Starting Line

Accepting His Award

He is Happy!!!

We Did It

2009-01-25T11:10:00.003-05:00

Well, we did it. We bought a minivan yesterday; 2008 Town and Country. I like it but I need to get used to it. I didn't think I would be so sad to get rid of my Civic....but I am. Oh well, it is just a car....a means to get around. I will get over it. The biggest accomplishment of this was that Mike was actually on board with it. If you remember from previous posts, he insisted what a family of 5 could fit in a Civic or Corolla. Even though he will not admit that he was wrong he is not complaining about the van anymore and likes it! We all make progress; sometimes it is just baby steps.

Today we have the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby race. I will let you know how that goes. I kind of, accidently messed up Matthew's car yesterday. Mike is trying to fix it this morning.

The Long Holiday Weekend

2009-01-19T17:17:00.002-05:00

We have enjoyed a long holiday weekend at our house. The boys were out of school on Friday because of the cold temperatures so a 3-day weekend turned into a 4-day weekend. They are not complaining. Of course, they have been playing a lot of Wii. Saturday was my crafty day of the weekend. Tammy, Kelly, Lisa, and Karen came over to scrapbook for the day. I am a little behind; just starting 2008! Sunday we had a swimming party for the Cub Scouts. It was held at the Fishers High School and it was a lot of fun. For the first two hours the boys learned about diving from the dive team and then broke into 5 groups. They went to different stations around the pool to practice techniques they learned. They loved that! The next two hours were free swim and I loved that! I have never swam while pregnant and it felt great. I felt weightless......ahhhhh. The school has open swim ever evening and on Sundays so I think I am going to start going more often. I forgot my camera, sorry no pictures! I didn't have to work on Monday so we had a family day. Breakfast at the Roost, minivan shopping, Toys R Us....a little something for all of us. By the way, any suggestions on a good minivan? I am liking the price of the Kia Sedona right now but I am worried about how well they run and stay running. (Karen, I already know your thoughts...no need to comment). I would really love a Honda Odyssey but they are a little too expensive for me and EVERYONE has one. That is all you see in a parking lot in Hamilton County. Another on the list of possiblities is the Dodge Grand Caravan or the Town and Country. Any thoughts would be great!

Happy Birthday Mike!!!!

2009-01-14T20:59:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was Mike's 36th birthday but since he teaches until 8:30 we celebrated it on Sunday. The normal tradition in the family is to make a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and M&M's, with the exception of Adam's birthday. He does not like chocolate and insists on white cake, white icing with Skittles. So when I told the boys we needed to make a cake for Dad there was a big argument. We settled on chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing and M&M's and white cupcakes with white icing and sprinkles (Skittles on a cake are not that good). Needless to say, we have a lot of cupcakes. Keeping in the Wii spirit of things we got Mike a miniature golf game for the Wii which he and the boys really like. I don't have the patience to play it!

Here are some pictures of our party.....

I have no idea what Matthew and Mike are looking at. I was the only other person there!

Belly Pictures 26 Weeks

2009-01-05T20:14:00.003-05:00

As requested by some....the belly at 26 weeks.

Thanks again to my photographers Matthew and Adam.

Christmas Round 2

2009-01-04T14:20:00.005-05:00

We were very blessed to have a visit from Mike's dad and step-mother during the week between Christmas and New Years. We always enjoy visiting with them. We celebrated Christmas with them Monday evening. As always we received many great gifts.

Look at all those presents!!!

One of the boys favorite gifts....robes made by Grandma Bratt. They love them and wear them all the time! I think they look adorable. Like little men....

Of course we had to demonstrate the Wii. I think there might be a Wii in Grandpa Bratt's future......

Our New Years Eve was very uneventful. I was still not feeling well so we stayed home, made a pizza and cookies and started to watch Shrek 2. We were all asleep by 9:30!!!!! We were very lame this year. The boys were upset we didn't have a big party again this year.

The rest of the weekend has been great.....a lot of resting and playing Wii.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!

2008-12-30T18:08:00.007-05:00

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year....

We had a very nice Christmas. The boys must have been really good because Santa was really good to them! I think Santa must be blind....

Santa has visited.....

Can we open our presents already???

The big score!!!!

Mike liked his slippers and movie....

I must have been really good this year. Mike and the boys gave me an Eternity necklace and a mom's planning calendar (I really wanted one!). The necklace was a total surprise and I love it!

Since I am saving up time for maternity leave I didn't want to take much vacation so we stayed around home this year. No traveling to Chicago or St. Louis even though we missed it.

We did travel to Brazil to visit with Mom, Dad, Mary, Erin, Skyla, and John for Christmas. We had a great lunch and then enjoyed the day putting together Lego's and playing Uno.....

Matthew, Adam and Skyla

Adam loves his dart game and army pants from John....

Carol, Faith and Will visited Grandma and Grandpa's on Friday....

Faith liked her blanket I made her...

Will gets a little help from Grandpa. He liked his popper we gave him and his ornament.

Adam got the best gift ever according to him...a Toys r Us gift card from Carol.

Mom and Dad's family gift to us this year was half of a Wii Nintendo and Wii Fit. Mike and I bought the other half. The boys were really excited. As soon as we got home Friday afternoon Mike hooked everything up and the three of them have been playing non-stop! They are getting pretty good at golf, baseball, and Mario Cart. Even though Mike was excited about the idea of us getting a Wii when I talked to him about it before Christmas he seems to have changed him mind a lot now....he plays it the most!

Wii Bowling...

It seems that every year around Christmas one of us is sick. This year it was Matthew. He started with a fever and congestion on the 22nd, thanks to Adam, who had it the week before. He also got pink-eye. He was still not feeling great on Christmas but if you kept him full of pain relievers he was just fine.

Next was my turn. I woke-up with pink-eye Christmas morning. My eye swollen shut, not able to wear my contacts and a pair of glasses that are 10 years old! It was great. Not too long after that I started to feel really bad...fever, aches, pains, congestion. It has been lovely. The good thing....Mike is really pampering me and I have been resting a lot! I have still managed to go to work or "work from home".

Coming soon....the rest of our Christmas!

More Cookie Baking Fun!

2008-12-21T20:39:00.010-05:00

On Sunday Matthew, Adam and I baked more cookies to give as treats to the neighbors and friends. Matthew did an awesome job helping me this year. Adam helped some also but was more interested in playing with Lego's.

Matthew's favorite...buckeye balls!

You can't bake cookies without taking a break to dance. The boys love Feliz Navidad....

Matthew and Adam made reindeer cookies....

The treat box.....

Cookies and Christmas....

2008-12-21T20:39:00.008-05:00

We had a great weekend celebrating Christmas with the Brown Family. Every year we get together to bake a lot of cookies, exchange gifts, and let the boys play. It was a lot of fun and all 6 boys behaved themselves pretty well! That is a hard thing to do when there are 6!

Thadd is my godchild...I made all of my godchildren blankets this year. He loved it!

Adam was happy with his hotwheels pop up...

Elijah is also my godchild....he like his blanket too! Yeah!
Matthew loves his Grossology book....We have read almost all of it. It is gross!

Isaac wanted a lava lamp...Cool dude!

Austin's gift hasn't come in the mail yet...sorry Austin!
Austin was my assistant in the kitchen...he was very helpful.

The kids get to decorate and eat their own cookies....WHAT A MESS!

Another Gingerbread House

2008-12-15T18:38:00.004-05:00

We had so much fun creating the gingerbread house in Matthew's class that he wanted to make one at home. Mike, the boys, and I had a lot of fun constructing our house. Matthew and Adam had many great ideas and ate a lot of the candy also.

Gingerbread House

2008-12-05T09:39:00.007-05:00

The second grade classes at Matthew's school had there annual holiday activities on Thursday. Each student and a parent got to build a gingerbread house. Matthew and I had a great time building ours. He can be very creative! I was proud at how good our house looked.

Matthew's class working hard on their houses

The finished product!

After building the houses we went to the gymnasium where the kids sang their Christmas songs. I think Matthew's class did the best.....

Half of the second graders (the other half performed later in the day)

Our little song bird

The xylophone performance

It was a fun morning at school!

Thanksgiving Travels

2008-11-30T19:55:00.006-05:00

This year we broke away from tradition and traveled to Chicago for Thanksgiving. We had a great time and kept really busy.

Thursday morning we went to the Thanksgiving Day Parade. The boys enjoyed the balloons and the Poo containers (large trash cans being pushed behind the horses that said P.O.O.)

John and Sanida hosted Thanksgiving dinner at their house. We had some great food! It was a lot of fun.

Cookies the boys and I made...gobble, gobble

Delicious appetizers...

The bird..

Friday we took the train downtown to honor a Bratt Family tradition; lunch at Italian Village. Lunch was delicious and really cool...we had our own little room. We called it the mafia room. The waiter told us it was once a pizza oven but I like to think some major mafia business went down in there. We also visited Kriskringlemart, Macy's Walnut Room tree, and the ice skating rink at Millennium Park.

The mafia room!

The tree at the Walnut Room in Macy's

Saturday, I had a very nice visit with my friend Sara who just had a little boy, Justin, on November 11th. He is so cute!

We decided to head home early on Saturday so that we could get stuff done around the house. Good thing we did; Mike and Matthew ended up with the throw-up germ. Adam had been sick earlier in the week and we thought we had escaped it. All is better now, I am just waiting my turn. Hopefully I don't get it.

We did manage to get our Christmas decorations up in the house on Sunday. The tree and outdoor decorations still need to be put up but I am in no rush.

Have a good week!

Matthew's Birthday Weekend Festival

2008-11-16T18:48:00.006-05:00

Wow! Did we have a busy birthday weekend! Nana and Pa came down from Chicago to visit with us. Matthew had his birthday party with all of the boys in his class plus a few neighbors and friends (17 boys!) Saturday afternoon at Taekwondo America. It was a huge success! The boys had a great time learning moves and the best part....discipline! They also got to play a game of dodge ball and enjoyed pizza and cake. Matthew got to cut the cake with a hugh sword which was one of his highlights. What more could you ask for?

Nana and Pa, Grandma and Grandpa Tempel, Aunt Karen, Sophia, Lisa and Joe helped celebrate Matthew's birthday with him Saturday evening with cake and ice cream.

Sunday, the BIG day, Matthew got to open his gifts from Nana and Pa, Grandpa and Grandma Bratt, and Mom, Dad, and Adam. It was like a warm-up for Christmas morning! There were a lot of Lego's received, some really cool books, clothes (which mom likes!), and a remote control speed boat for Grandma and Grandpa Tempel's lake! The boat goes 30 mph....I am looking forward to playing with that!

Chicago Bears hats from Grandpa and Grandma Bratt

After church and relegious education, we went to see Madagascar 2. It was really funny! Matthew got a gift card from Borders from Lisa and Joe and it was burning a hole in his pocket, so after the movie, Nana and the boys and I went to Borders were Matthew got a few of his favorite books....Magic Tree House. If that wasn't enough, we went to El Rodeo for dinner. It is the end of the day and we are all exhausted from the birthday weekend festival but it was a lot of fun!!!!

Baby News

2008-11-14T09:45:00.003-05:00

We had the ultrasound this morning. Everything looks great! The baby is 69 percentile and weights 10 oz., it is about 12 inches long. Oh, I guess you are probably wondering if it is a boy or a girl??? It is a.......BOY! We are excited, I don't think we would have known what to do with a girl. Sorry to all of you who were hoping for a girl.

In other news, Matthew's birthday is this weekend. He is turning the big 8. We decided to let him have a party with this friends this year. Tomorrow Matthew and 15 of his friends are going to be going to a local Karate store for lessons and fun. Pictures will follow soon!

Have a good weekend!

More Belly

2008-11-08T18:41:00.002-05:00

Here is the growing belly at 17 weeks....

(Photograph by: Adam Bratt)

We Have Lost A Tooth!

2008-11-02T13:25:00.004-05:00

Adam lost his first tooth last night!!! I was helping him brush his teeth after he ate about half of his Halloween candy and it fell out into the sink. He was very excited. He said that now he is a big boy. A very generous tooth fairy came and gave him $3! He is learning all kinds of new tricks he can do with his food and the space in his teeth. It should continue to be pretty interesting. His top two middle teeth are also loose. He may need two front teeth for Christmas!

Matthew lost his 7th tooth last week.

Happy Halloween!!!

2008-11-01T16:11:00.006-04:00

Halloween is one of Matthew and Adam's favorite holidays. They usually start planning in early September. This year was no different. They love to decorate the house and yard. Last weekend we carved the pumpkins. They did a good job!

Halloween night is always full of fun and excitement. Mike sets up his sound equipment in the garage and decorates it for trick-or-treaters. He stays home to great kids while I take the boys out for a while. Joe and Lisa came over this year to help celebrate the evening.

We had some scary kids this year. Matthew's costume was a big hit at most houses. His mask had a pump connected to it that would pump fake blood down the face. He really freaked out a few people. It looked really gross....... Adam was less scary in his Wolverine costume.

Matthew, Adam, Riley, and Kyle

Kids from the Sac

Joe was very scary!!!

The Fall Fun Continues

2008-10-19T12:27:00.003-04:00

Every fall we travel to a State Park to hike and enjoy the leaves. This year we stayed close to home and went to Mounds State Park in Anderson. It was a beautiful day and we had fun hiking the trails.

A dougout canoe.

The Great Mound (we are standing in the middle of it)

Today the boys begin their fall break. They are going to Grandma and Grandpa's house for a few days of fun!

Belly Pictures....

2008-10-19T12:23:00.004-04:00

After a few requests to see the belly I decided I would start to post pictures. Here you go....this is belly at the beginning of 15 weeks. It is a little fuzzy thanks to the photographer but I decided fuzzy was better.....

The Best Time of Year

2008-10-15T15:18:00.003-04:00

Last week was a busy week. I was out of town all week for an Ergonomic training class at Ohio State University. It was not exciting to be surrounded by so many Buckeye's but the class was great. That meant that Mike and the boys had to manage on their own. Of course, they do just fine without me. Thanks to Karen who picked them up after school three of the days, feed them, bathed them, and helped Matthew with his homework Mike didn't have to stress so much. That also meant I didn't have to worry about anything either. Their favorite Lisa also helped by watching them for an evening.

After the class it was straight to Brazil for the Covered Bridge Festival. It was perfect weather. Every year I go with my friend Tammy and we focus on finding a few items. This year our main focus was food and Shamwow! We decided it would be fun to scrapbook everything we ate. Here is just a taste of what we had....

Biscuits and Gravy

These were delicious...sausage wrapped in pumpkin pancakes!!!!

Italian Beef

I forgot to take pictures of the ice cream and no-bake cookies that were consumed.

What is the Covered Bridge festival without the bridge?

Now, about the Shamwows! This was something that Tammy was after. Luckily we found them. After the presentation I was sold and bought a set. I have to say that I have been using them and they work great! You can check them out here...http://www.shamwow.com/

One of the best purchases I had for the day was a globe of the world that I found at an antique stand. The boys think it is really cool!

Don't Pee In Your Pants! Thanks to my neighbor Michelle for creating this!

2008-10-06T07:59:00.001-04:00

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Apple Orchard

2008-09-28T18:19:00.002-04:00

What a nice weekend after a rather hectic week! We spent Friday evening at the school for Grillin and Chillin. It is an event put on by the Dad's club. Free hamburgers, brats, hot dogs, chips, cookies..... They even have entertainment. It was a beautiful evening and the boys enjoyed getting to break the rules on the playground with all their friends.

It is Boy Scout popcorn time!!!! Anyone interested in some popcorn? We had to pick-up our starter pack Saturday. As soon as we got home Matthew put on his uniform and started door-to-door selling. Last year he had no interest...this year it is a different story. He did really well...a little shy at first but he sold a lot in just one hour!!! I vows to go out for one hour each night; I am not really looking forward to that! Hopefully that passion will die down. He is really working toward the grand prize a Nintendo DS. I do not want him to have one of those but he has to sell $2300 worth of popcorn to get it so I am not too worried. That is a lot of popcorn!

Saturday afternoon we traveled to a Tuttles Orchard. The apples are delicious and their pumpkins looked great!

Oktoberfest Zinzinnati!!

2008-09-20T18:06:00.005-04:00

On Saturday the boys, myself and Lisa visited John in Cincinnati, what a good time (Mike had to teach all morning Saturday). The big highlight was Oktoberfest. We participated in the World's Largest Chicken dance which was pretty funny.

Dance, Dance, Dance!!!

We tasted great food....Goetta Balls, fried pickles, German potato salad, German Egg Rolls, soft baked pretzels, Strudel, German brats. There was much more that I would have liked to try but no room in the belly and no more money in the pockets. We listened to a great German band at the Spatan tent.

The Wiener Mobile

Theses guys were good and hilarious...notice the stein of beer in the singer hand.

Another highlight was visiting the IKEA that opened this spring close to John's house. It is much closer than the one in Chicago. I love that place!!!!

On Sunday, Ellen and Dan (Nana and Pa) came down to see Matthew's baseball game and visit. We had a nice lunch with them and enjoyed the game. They took the boys to see Fly Me to the Moon in 3D. I am not sure who liked it more....the boys or Mike.

I enjoyed the evening babysitting my cute niece Sophia and adorable nephew James while Karen and Jim went to the Colts game.

What has been going on?

2008-09-08T08:35:00.005-04:00

I haven't blogged in a while....I guess I didn't have enough interesting things to share but I can update you on what we have been doing.....

A few weeks ago we traveled to Chicago to celebrate Erol's 4th birthday. Erol had lots of friends at the party and Matthew and Adam had a great time. It was a short trip but we still had fun.

Labor Day weekend was the first weekend we have been home with nothing planned since sometime in April!!!!! We took the opportunity to paint the guest room which until this point still had the white paint that contractors put on when they were building the house. The guest room is now Matthew and Adam's new room. It gives them more space. It is a light grey and Mike will be stenciling addition, subtraction and multiplication problems on the walls. I will take a picture to show you how it turns out. Their old room is going to be the baby room but for now it is my office/playroom/guest room.

The rest of the weekend was spent at the pool since it was the last weekend it was open for the season and fishing. There is a retention pond behind our cul-de-sac that our neighbor stocks. Adam caught 2 bass...one of them was huge! Matthew caught a little blue gill.

Matthew started fall baseball a few weekends ago. It is really nice....they practice for one hour before each game on Sundays which works out great for me because Mike can take him and help. They both enjoy it and it saves me from having to run around all week with practices and games! Adam and I show up in time for the game! Matthew is doing awesome with baseball by the way. They rotate positions every 2 innings but he has been catcher every game. He said he loves being catcher but Mike is trying to talk him out of it. Mike was a catcher for a long time and he said it killed his knees.

Pregnancy update.....food sucks! I have had mild nausea from day one but over the past two weeks the nausea has been much worse and I have had major food aversions to pretty much everything. Cooking makes me sick (which I think I am beginning to like!). Water and V-8 Splash is about the only things I can drink which is a good thing I guess. Bagels are my friends. Everything else is hit-or-miss. One minute I am loving something, the next minute I can not even look at it. I DON'T EVEN LIKE ICE CREAM! That is unheard of from me! The worst part is that I have been finally getting an appetite around 8 or 9:00 in the evening and I hate eating that late. Of course the food I am hungry for is bad for you also....McDonalds cheese burgers, fried chicken, sun chips.....YUCK! Makes me sick just thinking about it.

Common Questions

2008-08-23T08:29:00.006-04:00

These are the answers to a few the questions we have been asked in the past week:

1. Yes, it was planned!

2. Matthew and Adam are very excited. They tell everyone they see. Adam said he has been wanting this his whole life.

3. Boy or Girl, doesn't matter...healthy is the main concern. Matthew has requested a girl, Adam a boy.

4. There is only one baby.

5. Yes, I am 35....so what! 35 is the new 25 didn't you know.

6. Due date is April 12, 2009 but from previous experience I wouldn't be surprised if it was a few weeks earlier.

7. We do realize (at least I do) that we will probably have to get a bigger vehicle. A Civic and a Corolla probably is not going to do the job.

8. I feel pretty good. I have nausea if I don't keep a little bit of food in my stomach which isn't hard because I normally eat a lot of small meals a day. I do have a lot of food aversions!

9. Yes, I am going to continue to run until it is too uncomfortable to do so. The Dr. said no mini-marathon in May.

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!

2008-08-21T14:26:00.004-04:00

Matthew and Adam are exctited to announce that they will becoming big brothers (Matthew even bigger than he already is) in early April 2009!

That is right, the Bratt's are having a baby. Stay tuned for all the updates, pictures, baby counters widgets.....

August is the Month for Birthdays!

2008-08-17T19:07:00.004-04:00

Our family has many birthdays in the month of August....first Mike's Nana's birthday on August 3rd then his step-dads the next day. Dad and I celebrate on August 11th.

A week later Faith and Erol celebrate their birthdays on August 18th. We have a lot of parties. This past weekend Faith had her birthday pool party. Everyone enjoys playing in the pool.

John and the boys spent a lot of time doing tricks.

Next weekend we travel to Chicago to celebrate with Erol! The boys are so excited!

Back To School

2008-08-11T16:46:00.004-04:00

Back To School....
Hard to believe it but today was the first day of school for the boys. Adam was so excited to start kindergarten! He got up at 7:00 put his clothes and shoes on and walked around the house with his back pack on until it was time to go to the bus at 8:30! When I went to pick him up at noon he said he wanted to stay longer :) Hopefully he keeps that attitude!

Matthew was cute. As he was getting ready for school he told me that his feels the same way he does when he is getting ready to bat in a baseball game. I guess he was excited or maybe a little nervous. Must get that from me. I remember being like that the first day of school every year! When I asked Matthew what his favorite thing was of the day he of course said recess. I was upset to find out he only gets one recess this year and no snack!!!

The kids of the sac

Eleven kids got on the bus from our street!!

Have a good day!

2008-08-09T13:16:00.004-04:00

Comin' Back Around
That is the slogan for this year's Indiana State Fair. Matthew, Adam and I enjoyed a day at the fair yesterday. The weather was perfect and the food was great. We started off the morning the way all good mornings should....with a milk shake from the dairy barn. Donuts were also required.

I think we managed to see almost everything you could at the fair this year. A few highlights....Clarian Health had "Coco" the Colon on display. The boys enjoyed crawling through and pretending they were poop. It was pretty disgusting to see what colon cancer looks like. I think they learned something though. The people at the booth talked about what is healthy food for a colon and what isn't. Today all Adam wanted for lunch was green peppers, green beans and tomatoes. He wants to be healthy. Never mind the donut he had at breakfast. I guess you can cheat sometimes.

Those are some big turds!!!

Wii had a booth displaying the new Wii Fit. We had to try it out and I loved it. I really want to get one now.

We always enjoy looking at the 4-H projects. Matthew and Adam love the Lego displays and the cakes. This is probably the most awesome cake I have ever seen! I love it, hence the photos....

We spent plenty of time at the DNR where the boys looked at fish and drove remote control boats on the water (Good idea for grandpa's lake!). The FFA miniature golf is always a big hit with the boys and we can't leave the fair without at least one round.

They also enjoy the Riley Farmer for a Day park.

After being at the fair for 7 hours and a tractor ride around the fair we were ready to go home......

2008-08-07T19:35:00.003-04:00

Back to School......

Tonight we had the Ice Cream Social at school. It is a great event for the kids to meet their teachers and see their new classrooms. I volunteered to scoop ice cream. My 30 minute time slot turned into 1 hour and 15 minutes but it was still fun. I got to scoop mint chocolate chip...probably my least favorite ice cream. Matthew and Adam did a great job putting the spoons in the cups.

Adam's kindergarten teacher is Mrs. Walter

Matthew's teachers are Ms. Carrell and Mrs. Knutson

As I promised, I would post a picture of Matthew award winning art. It was hung tonight at the school for all to see. I am so proud of him...it brought tears to my eyes.

The masterpiece

The artist and his work

2008-08-05T18:14:00.004-04:00

Big Nana turns the Big 9-0

On Sunday, August 3rd Mike's grandmother turned 90 years old. The family had a celebration to honor her. It was a very nice party with great food and fun.

Did you know ninety years ago in 1918.....

Daylight savings time began

World War 1 ended in Novmeber

a first class postage stam cost $0.03

a pound of coffee cost $0.29

The Boston Red Sox beat the Cubs 4-2 in the World Series (Nana is from Boston)

The Birthday Girl!

Delicious cake!!!

Opening gifts from the great-grandchildren

Family

2008-07-31T09:56:00.009-04:00

I have pretty delinquent at posting lately....we have just been too busy. To get you up to speed...

We enjoyed the Hamilton County 4-H fair this year the weekend of July 19th with mom and dad. Matthew exhibited in mini 4-H for the first time. He made a Christmas ornament out of homemade dough and he made peanut butter ball cookies (I love those things!!). The best part of the fair was dad climbing the rock wall with Matthew and Adam. He did better than both of them!!!

Grandma helping Matthew make his cookies

Grandpa climbing the rock wall

Last week was really crazy and I brought it on myself. I decided it would be fun to take the boys to Holiday World again since they enjoyed themselves so much last year. Since our weekends have been booked and will continue to be until sometime in mid-September we went during the week. Lisa took a day off also and joined us. Of course we had a blast!!! My Aunt Lucy, who works at the park, spent the afternoon enjoying the water park with us. It was great to visit with her. I was happy she was there also because that meant I didn't have to ride the roller coaster with Lisa!!! As if 8 hours at Holiday World wasn't enough we went to the Dubois County fair with Lisa's mom (my aunt) Mary. It was fun...the beef show was taking place and we got to see an old friend, Jeremy. Needless to say, we didn't get home until 1:00 a.m. It wasn't too much fun going to work the next morning!

Fun at Holiday World

A bunch of Turkeys!!!!

Saturday, July 26th we drove to St. Louis to visit with Mike's dad and stepmom. As always, we had a great time and were treated to wonderful food. Saturday afternoon we went to a water park that was similar to Holiday World. Matthew and Adam's cousins Sarah and Ryan joined us. The kids love playing together and get along great. Sunday everyone went to the movies to see Journey to the Center of the Earth, in 3D. The movie was pretty good but the 3D made it great.

Mike and his dad.....coffee break

Matthew, Adam, Sarah, and Ryan

Part of the reason for the trip to St. Louis for was a Campus Safety and Health Management Assoication (CSHEMA) conference that I was to attend. Sunday evening was the beginning of the festivities. The group had a reception at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. The gardens were beautiful! What made the conference even better was my friend Sara from Chicago was at the conference. I had a great time hanging out with her and talking.

Lobby of the Hyatt

Mike and the boys stayed with me at the hotel which was at the Union Station in St. Louis. They had a great time exploring the city. One of the things Mike said he would never do was go to Busch Stadium. Well, he must have had a change of heart because one of the first things they did on Monday was take a tour of the stadium. He said it was really nice. They also played neon, 3D minature golf, had lunch with his dad, and went swimming. Not bad for a days work!

For dinner on Monday we went to a mexican restraunt/bar Senior Julio's. The food was pretty good but the best part was the mechanical bull! I was able to stay on for 35 seconds. Mike did not do as well....

Experienced bull rider

Hold on!

Tuesday, while I was at the conference, Mike and the boys went to the zoo. From what they tell me it was a really nice zoo. It was free...which is great. Matthew spoke of giant snakes and spiders. Adam said it was too hot...it was almost 100 degrees that day. Tuesday evening the conference took everyone to a really cool place called City Museum (Mike and the boys got to come). This place was unlike anything I have seen and was totally awesome! I highly recommend this place if you visit St. Louis, http://www.citymuseum.org/.

The bird cage

This plane was really high in the air

That is Adam crawling across there, no fear.

Cool whale.

2008-07-14T20:45:00.003-04:00

And the fun just doesn't stop in the Bratt House.....

After a relatively quiet week we had another busy weekend. My running club started again on Saturday and although I was really looking forward to going I didn't get to because of a nice thunderstorm at 8 a.m. I will run in rain, freezing temperatures, snow, sleet....but I draw the line at thunderstorms. I decide to wait out the storm at home and after it was over I took the boys with me on a run. They ride their bikes and I try to keep up. It is a good workout and we all have fun.

Later in the day we traveled to the Brown's house in Lizton to celebrate summer or Austin (July 13th - 12 years old), Thadd (July 1st - 2 years old), and Isaac's (June 6th - 7 years old) birthday's. We had a great time. I had this smart idea to get Isaac water balloons and a sling shot for his b-day. Needless to say I spent about 2 hours filling up over 300 water balloons! The boys had a great time getting each other wet. After they finished off the water balloons they moved on to squirt guns and when that became boring they got the garden hoses out. The hoses didn't last too long! As tradition, the adults took on the kids in an awesome game of kick ball. The adults won again 12-8. I think we might be in trouble next year as the kids are getting much bigger and the adults much older! Anyway, it was a very nice day.

Thadd enjoyed the water toy I got him.

Cheri and I decided it would be fun to ride Derek's
lawn mower...I wasn't so good!

Sunday the family was in town to celebrate the baptism of baby James. We had a good lunch at Karen's and relaxed in their back yard.

This week is pretty hectic....Mike is teaching a guitar camp at the YMCA from 9-noon each day. The boys are going to the YMCA with him and playing in the playroom. They love it but I think they might be bored by the end of the week. Matthew is in a reading camp this summer. He meets every Tuesday from 9-11. Since Mike is at camp, I will be "working from home" so I can take him and pick him up. The 4-H fair starts on Thursday! Matthew is exhibiting in mini 4-H for the first time. He has already made his craft, a Christmas tree ornament. He is also taking foods...we haven't decided what we are going to make yet.

Have a good week!

2008-07-10T07:43:00.008-04:00

So it has been a while since I last posted....we have been busy. We always have fun around the 4th of July. Fishers celebrates their Freedom Festival the weekend before the 4th and there are many activities to enjoy. Matthew, Lisa, Joe, and I ran the 5K race on Saturday morning. I was so proud of Matthew! He finished in 43 minutes!!!! That was his first time to run over a mile. I had a good run also and finished in 27 minutes. It was fun. Since Matthew is in Cub Scouts he had to work at their pork chop booth during the day on Saturday. He had a lot of fun yelling, chop, pop, and chips....$5. Sunday we enjoyed the parade in the afternoon and a very awesome fireworks display that evening.

Sophia and Beck at the parade

4th of July weekend was fun but it started off on a bad note....I came down with strep throat AGAIN on Wednesday. On Thursday my neighbor and I had organized our 2nd annual Cul-de-Sac party. The party went on and I was able to enjoy it but not as much as I would have liked to. The kids enjoyed crafts...this year we made bead necklaces and fireworks out of pipe cleaners. There was plenty of good food also!

The Pamona Pack

Friday we went to Mom and Dad's to relax by the lake. The boys are getting really good at fishing. They spent almost all of their time fishing with grandpa and uncle John or swimming. We enjoyed a good fireworks display from John Friday evening. He tied the row boat up on the deck and then used the paddle boat to set-up the fireworks. It was fun to watch.

As if that wasn't enough, we decided to go to Holland, Michigan on Sunday. We had so much fun last year we decided to do it again. We spent the day enjoying the beach. It was great but ALOT colder than Hilton Head. The water was only 62 degrees! The boys spent a lot of time playing in the sand.

What vacation would not be complete with out a round of miniature golf and batting cages......

We were planning for more fun on Monday but it was overcast and cool and then Mike came down with food poisoning. We headed home but it was still a fun trip.

2008-06-23T13:17:00.008-04:00

We have finally adjusted back into swing of things after our long vacation. Of course this weekend was busy again....Adam had his last t-ball game of the season. He got his trophy which I think is the real reason he wanted to play.

Saturday afternoon the boys and I headed to Brazil to spend time at mom and dad's while Mike made the trip to Chicago to see the Cubs beat the White Sox. Matthew and Adam could not wait to go fishing.....We fished all evening on Saturday and then all day on Sunday. They caught 2 or 3 fish apiece but spent most of the time letting the fish eat their worms! Dad didn't get to do much fishing....his time was spent fixing rods, hooking worms, and gettting poles our of trees. Matthew and Adam have succesfully learned how to put a worm on the hook and take a fish off now. It should be better next time.

2008-06-14T23:49:00.005-04:00

We have made it back home safe and sound! I will bring you up to date since I last posted on Thursday morning.....

Mike, Matthew, Adam and I took a bike ride to the Baynard Ruins to walk some of the trails. After that, Matthew and I took for for a bike ride along the beach. Two hours later we finally made it back home! It was a great ride!

We spent a little time at the pool after the bike ride then it was off to Pirates Island for another round of miniature golf. After golf we headed to the beach for the rest of the afternoon.

Thursday evening we had a great meal at home. The blue crabs were delicious!!!! The rest of the evening we walked around Harbour Town and packed to go home :(

Friday
I was able to get a nice run in Friday morning before we had to check out of the condo. The rest of the afternoon was spent driving toward the Smokey Mountains. We checked into a hotel in Maggie Valley, NC and enjoyed the views around town. I had the best mushrooms at a place called Bear Paws. The boys got to swim at the hotel pool so they thought this place was great.

Alligator!!!!

Saturday
Saturday we went to Cherokee, NC. and did some white water rafting down the Tuskegee River. I was a little worried at first but Mike and I finally figured out how to navigate the rocks. I was the only one to fall out of the raft chasing my runaway oar. After 5 miles the trip was over and it was a good thing because we were tired! It was great though. Our trip through the Smokies was beautiful....we stopped for lunch in Gatlenburg and finally made it home around 10:30!

2008-06-12T08:35:00.002-04:00

Wednesday was a day for trying new things. Mike and John went to play golf at Ocean, nothing new there...but Sanida and I took the boys crabbing for the first time. We didn't really know what we were doing but how hard can it be. You buy the net and raw chicken and throw it in the water. The first throw we caught a crab!!!! After that we didn't have much luck...we caught a lot of hermit crabs. A nice man from Tennessee tried to help us but it wasn't meant to be.

After crabbing we went to South Beach and the boys made shark necklaces. They had a lot of fun doing this. On the way back to Harbour Town we stopped by Baynard Ruins. They boys loved looking at the old plantation house (they believe that pirates used to live there). The rest of the afternoon was spent at the beach!

For dinner we feasted at home on fresh shrimp, watermelon, and corn on the cob. YUM! The rest of the evening was spent crabbing. We had much better luck this time! In no time at all Mike had caught 4 crabs! By the end of the evening we had 10! Instead of throwing them back we took them home and cooked them. Dinner tonight!

2008-06-11T08:06:00.003-04:00

Tuesday Mike and John golfed Harbour Town....they didn't do that great. Mike shot a 103 and John 109. They claim it was the heat! While they were golfing Sanida and I kept busy with the kids. But first Sanida and I went for a long run on the beach. I was great! After that we took the boys to the tennis courts for lessons with Pa. Pa even helped me with my serve and return. Look out Lisa....I am going to beat you this year! It was really hot on the courts so I took the boys on a bike ride to the beach and we played there for a while. The rest of the day we spent at the pool....you can't get enough water here!

Since we didn't get to do everything we wanted for Adam's birthday we extended it into Tuesday. The one thing we didn't have time for on Monday was miniature golf. We went to Pirates Island for a scary round of golf. Tuesday evening was family fun night at Shelter Cove. There were activities for the kids...Matthew, Adam and Erol made sand art. Adam befriended a lady and her two girls fishing off the pier so we watched them fish while we waited for fireworks. The fireworks show was good and finally it was time to go home! It was a late night....we didn't get home until 10:00. Everyone was ready for bed!

2008-06-11T07:49:00.003-04:00

Monday, June 9th

We have been having so much fun I haven't had time to post. Monday was a very full day. We started off the day as all birthday's should....with presents! Adam received Lego's so those had to be put together first thing. Next we took a morning bike ride around Deer Island and we saw a deer with it's little baby. There is a cool tree house playground at Harbour Town that the boys spent some time playing on. Later in the morning we spent some time at the pool.

Then it was time for a dolphin ride! We went out on a 6 person boat and saw many dolphins really close-up! Some highlights of the ride....the boys got to drive the boat, we got to touch a cannonball jellyfish (they don't sting), we stopped at an island made of shells and the boys got to bring some shells home, and the driver of the boat did donuts in the water! It was a really cool ride and we can't wait to do it again.

For lunch we went to The Shipwreck of Salty Dog at South Beach. The rest of the afternoon was spent at the beach. And if that wasn't enough we went to the Salty Dog for dinner. Finally, at 9:00 we came back to the apartment for cake, ice cream, and presents although everyone was too tired to enjoy it. Mike and I gave Adam his own guitar with carrying case for his birthday. He LOVES it and has been playing for us every chance he gets....it is so cute!

2008-06-09T13:48:00.003-04:00

Hot and Humid! That is what is going on here in HHI. But it doesn't matter on the beach, the breeze is great. We had a great bike ride yesterday morning to the beach along with a nice walk. We collected many shells. We tackled our first miniature golf course in the afternoon. Adam got a hole in one. It was a really hard course and Matthew has decided we will never go back to that one. Mike and John tackled Heron Point again yesterday. Mike was much improved from the previous day....95. Tomorrow is Harbour Town. We spotted our first alligator on the way back from miniature golfing! It was huge....about 7 foot long! I have some good pics. Last night we spent the evening watching the sun set from Harbour Town lighthouse.

Today is Adam's birthday and he is having a great time! I will post about that tomorrow....

Off to the beach!

2008-06-07T21:49:00.003-04:00

Greetings from Hilton Head, South Carolina!

We arrived safely in HHI early Friday and was greeted with a very humid and hot day. Perfect for the beach and pool! Wait until you see the sand castles that have been built here. Day 1 - we spent a few hours at the beach after checking into the time share. Friday evening we spent enjoying the Salty Dog. The boys had a great time dancing. Day 2 - Saturday was spent at the pool and the beach. We also managed to get in a bike ride. Mike and his mom golfed at a newly designed course today. Mike liked the challenge but I think that is the worst he has golfed since I met him! He is going back tomorrow......I will let you know how that goes.

2008-05-31T10:43:00.002-04:00

We have an artist in the family!

Every year (since 1991) Matthew's school chooses artwork from one student in each grade to be permanently displayed in the halls of the school. This year Matthew's artwork titled "Bubblegum Machine" was chosen out of all of the 100+ first graders!!! It will be matted and framed and displayed in the hall of his school for years to come. His name and grade will be on a bronze plate on the bottom. We are very proud of him!!!! I haven't seen the piece yet but I am told it is a painting of a bubblegum ball machine on a table with a blue sky. The machine has gum and toys in it. I will try to get a picture of it sometime to post.

Awesome job Matthew!!!!

2008-05-27T15:27:00.007-04:00

Happy Memorial Day!!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend! We certainly did...we went to Chicago for the weekend. We tried to do it all. Saturday we enjoyed watching Erol play t-ball. John found a cool miniature golf course in Skokie so we did a little practicing before the big trip to Hilton Head in a few weeks. It was a really neat course. They also had batting cages which I loved!

One of the great things about going back to Chicaog is the food. We enjoyed lunch at one of our favorite places...The Village Tap. It has good food and a really nice outdoor garden and it is kid friendly!

Sunday I had breakfast with my good friend Sara and her little girl Lauren. It was fun. Again another good eatery....Kitsch'n. I had green eggs and ham, yum! After that we decided to spend the day downtown.

First stop, The John Hancock Observatory.....

Matthew and Adam really liked to see swimming pools on the tops of buildings.

Another big highlight for the boys was the new Lego store that opened up on Michigan Avenue.....

Later in the evening we watched the Northwestern Symphony Orchestra at Millennium Park. It was a nice night for a concert.

But the weekend wasn't over yet! On Monday we had a nice cookout and early birthday celebration for Adam at Mike's mom's house. Aunt Nancy and Big Nana visited with us also. It was a really nice day and a great weekend. Everyone was very tired when we made it back home.

2008-05-20T20:52:00.002-04:00

Grandma Tempel gets to hold Baby James first.

The happy family of 4

Sophia likes him, (or at least she likes the gadets on him)

He is really cute!

He was sucking his thumb almost the whole time we were there!

2008-05-20T15:27:00.004-04:00

James Lawerence Beason is here!

Born: 2:39 p.m.
Weight: 7lbs. 14 oz.
Length: 21 inches

His hair has a red tint. Everyone is going great! I will take pictures and post on the blogsite (http://www.wearebratts.blogspot.com/) later today.

2008-05-20T09:55:00.002-04:00

Happy Birthday!!!!!

It looks like we are going to be celebrating a birthday today! Karen went into labor around 5:30 this morning. She is at the hospital and progressing well. It looks like he might be here sometime before noon. I will keep you updated!