Our adventure started on a beautiful June day in 2004. Fast forward 12 years and now we are the proud parents of 3 active, beautiful boys. Nathan, Bracken, and Marco. We call Prescott Valley, Arizona home and are constantly reminded that there is never enough time to accomplish and experience everything we think we want. Life with a young family is precious and simplicity is our ongoing quest.
My boys loves baths and I love giving them baths. There is something very satisfying about taking a sweaty little boy, sticking him the tub and getting him squeaky clean and sweet smelling again.
And bath time is especially fun when you get to splash and play with your brother!
Against all odds, another year passed and Curtis, much to his dismay, is one year older!
Curtis is not a huge Birthday fan when it comes to his own special day, so we kept it simple. His "cake" was a tower of doghnuts and we gave him a blower/vac yard tool which has been greatly needed.
...because if forces to you take a leap of faith and potty train!
I knew Bracken was really close to being ready for potty training and I was so over changing his diapers. Compared to Marco his little buttox was not very cute anymore. Several times a week I would ask him if he wanted to learn how to use the toilet like Natey & Papi. He wouldn't skip a beat before answering "No, I like diapers!" So I didn't push the matter until one weekend when we were dangerously low on diapers. I knew I needed to make a diaper run but Friday passed me by and before I knew it Saturday was almost done and gone and I had no energy left for a shopping trip. I knew I could raid our 72 hour kits if I got desperate so I opted to wait it out and see how the chips fell. Sunday morning came and we had 3 size 6 diapers to our name. Amazingly enough we only used 2 diapers that day leaving us one remainging diaper for Monday morning. When I was getting Bracken dressed for the day I decided to take the plunge because I still didn't feel like hauling my posse to the store. I looked him in the eye and said "Bracken, guess what? We don't have any more diapers, they are all gone! You have to wear underwear now." I braced myself for a tantrum of some sort, but he smiled and said "Okay mommy!" And he has been wearing undies ever since!!!
That first week went really smoothly with only a few minor accidents of both varieties. By week 2 he pretty much had the drill down and he was even waking up dry 90% of the time. I was one happy Momma! It has been a month and a half and he is still going strong.
There isn't much that beats a chubby toddler toosh in little undies, especially when they have Cars characters on them. And in my eyes, Bracky's toosh is cute once again!
Earlier in May, Tia Marci came all the way from Fayetteville Arkansas to visit us. Nate and Brack adore Marci and they were super excited to have her with us for a whole week
We had nice warm weather so we busted out the pool and Marci had fun soaking up our dry Arizona sunshine while the boys splashed it up.
Marci has a thing for adorable cowboys and these are 2 of her favorites. She decked them out with some new cowboy gear but they had to promise to be good, if they had any fits the new boots, spurs, and hats would disapear. They were pretty good about keeping their promise. Bracken loved his boot so much he slept in them, napped in them and wore his boots for 3 days straight.
Our little Marco took a while to warm up to Tia Marci. For the first few days she was here he fussed when she would hold him. So one day she decided to win him over and persevered through about 30 minutes of fussiness and he eventually decided she must not be all that bad. For the remainder of her visit he enjoyed his snuggle time with Tia Marci and awarded her with plenty of smiles.
We spent one afternoon at Lynx Lake. We went on a little hike and tried our hand at letter boxing but either we couldn't follow directions or the map was bogus because we could find half of the trail markers that were supposed to be there. The boys were dissapointed that we couldn't finish our "treasure hunt" but we gave it our all. I think Curtis stuck his hand down every hollow trunk along the trail.
We enjoyed a picnic lunch near the lake and of course we can't be near a body of water with out tossing a bunch of rocks into it. Nathan tried to learn the art of skipping rocks since Papi and Tia Marci are pros but he doesn't have a keen eye for picking out skipping appropriate rocks yet.
Even though it looks as though Nate is about to whack Bracken, that rock made it safely into the lake with a pleasingly large splash.
Every time Marci comes to visit the boys beg her to take them riding and she is always happy to oblige. Luckily she has connections with a super nice family that let her ride when ever she is in town and both boys were in horsey heaven.
One evening Curtis surprised us with a last minute shooting adventure. We drove out to one of our favorite spots and the kids had fun shooting up cans of soda and some random pieces of garbage we scrounged up.
Nathan is turning into a little sharp shooter. Tia Marci was pretty impressed with his skills.
When all of our daylight was we enjoyed some grilled chicken, hot dogs, Kmart brand pineapple soda, and a whole lot of silliness.
Boot Buddies
Marci was able to catch one of Nathan's t-ball games before she caught the shuttle down to Phoenix.
It was a glorious week having Marci with us, WE LOVE YOU MARCI!
