The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

Father’s Day

I’m finally getting up all the Father’s Day pictures from two weekends ago.  As I mentioned, we had Robert’s family in town for lunch and had a great time. There was a BBQ feast with Golden Rule BBQ and lots of homemade sides – cole slaw, beans, corn salad (very similar to this but I cook my onions and tomatoes) – and these strawberry shortcake cookies for dessert.  Yum!

Maxwell obviously loved all the attention and both he and Nanner got to wear some of Lulu’s jewelry for a while!

The weather was beautiful and the cousins had a blast playing outside with some bubbles and sidewalk chalk and whatever other toys were around.  I think everyone enjoyed being outside that day thanks to the fans on our deck!  I’m just going to let the pictures do the rest of the talking…

and, finally, proof that I was there too!

A great way to celebrate Father’s Day!

Father’s Day

Wishing a VERY happy Father’s Day this weekend to four VERY special dads…

My grandfather, Granddaddy…


Maxwell at 12 months
We hope we get to see you soon, Granddaddy!

My dad, Daddo…


Maxwell at 12 months
We can’t wait to see you July 4th, Daddo!

Robert’s Dad, Granddad…


Maxwell at 11 months
We can’t wait to see you this weekend, Granddad!

And, of course, Maxwell’s dad, DaDa (as Maxwell says these days!)  🙂


Maxwell at 20 months
We love getting to see you every day!  🙂

Maxwell is so lucky to have all four of you!!  Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there, especially Keath, John, Birc and Ronnie!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Sending out special wishes to all the moms out there, especially the ones in my life – Lou Lou, Jenny, Jen, Cara, Amy, Susu and, last but not least…

The one and only GJ!  Happy Mother’s Day, Momma!!

Hope you all know how loved you are today and every day!

favorite pictures from March and April 2011

Weekend roundup

 

The top 12 observations from our beautiful and hot weekend.

1. Maxwell looks very pretty when all dolled up in LuLu’s jewelry!

We had a lunch visit from LuLu and Granddaddy on Friday and Maxwell had the best time playing “dress up!”  🙂

2. Maxwell learned it’s not easy to eat chips with a fork.

Good lesson learned.

3. We ventured out to another new playground on Friday afternoon and had a great time. Well, it was at his school so new to me but old to him.  Maybe that’s why he’s giving me the stare down here?

4. I learned that I really have to stop letting Maxwell play with my car keys.  He’s managed to start the car remotely a few times at home and, while we were at the playground, he not only pushed the panic button (which sets off the car alarm) 4 times but he managed to unlock the car and open the tailgate without my knowledge.  I couldn’t see the car from the playground so only noticed 20 minutes later our car had been sitting completely unlocked with the tailgate wide open!  Goodness gracious, he’s a mess!

But he’s a cute mess!  🙂

5.  On Saturday Maxwell took his first train ride.  I snapped a few pics with my phone before we got on the train, including one of him in this awesome engineer hat (don’t worry, it didn’t come home with us)…

and one of him playing with this train table (that might have to come home with us at some point!).

Lots more pictures of the actual train ride to come tomorrow.

6. Happy Cinco de Mayo!  We celebrated with an early feast of beans and rice.  Cheap Mexican restaurants are definitely the best places to go out to eat with a toddler.  And my toddler ate this whole plate by himself!  big boy!

7. This made me laugh…hard.

8. Maxwell got to wear his new Crocs all weekend.  Since he broke his leg, I’ve been trying to keep him in tennis shoes for the support until he stops limping.  He’s getting better and it’s getting hotter so I thought we’d try out the Crocs.  While he still prefers his tennis shoes (his red Elmo tennis shoes to be specific), I do think he liked his new summer shoes.  and hopefully this will help even out his pretty mean sock tan!

9. On Sunday, Maxwell “helped” Robert trim shrubs in the front yard.  Gotta teach ’em early!

10. Robert works so hard in the yard and it shows.  I think we’ve got the prettiest yard on the block!  A pat on the back for you, Robert!

11. It was really hot this weekend.  and it’s only May.  This pregnant lady is DREADING July.

12. Maxwell has been saying a new word for a while – “Nano” – and we couldn’t figure out what it meant.  The mystery has been solved.  As I’ve mentioned, Nanner the monkey has been dubbed “NeNe” and, apparently, Mr. Moo the cow has been dubbed “NaNo”.  Sounds like a good cow name to me!

That’s it for today!  See you tomorrow!

Random Reports

We’ve had some things going on around here that I haven’t had a chance to talk about so thought I’d just throw it all into one random post.  Here we go…

Report 1:  We had a little visit from GJ and Daddo last week and Maxwell was in heaven. Daddo came bearing M&Ms so he was an instant hit.  Maxwell still says “Daddo!” whenever I give him an M&M.

Maxwell giving Daddo good night kisses…

He was stuck like glue to “GG” for 2 days.

These two were like peas in a pod…

He tried to work his magic on her too.  First, he kept asking “GG” to do everything with him in his precious little voice.  Second, when we were putting him to bed, he didn’t want to go so he laid his little head down on GJ’s shoulder and snuggled into her!  If it wasn’t for me I think my mom might have stood there and held him all night!  Third, the next morning she took him to school with me and he did NOT want her to put him down.  He was finally bribed with a cracker to get down but then immediately reached his chubby little hands back out for GJ to scoop him up.  It took everything my mom had to walk out the door and leave him there like that.  Talk about pulling at my mom’s heartstrings all weekend!  Needless to say, this is how Maxwell reacted when he got home from school and realized GJ and Daddo had gone back to FL…

Just kidding…sorta.  GJ and Daddo, whenever you guys are ready to move to AL, I’ve got a little boy who’ll be very excited!

Report 2: The house across the street from us got demolished and it was basically the best day of Maxwell’s life.  We had an excavator in action directly across the street from us for 2 days and I heard Maxwell say “truck!” more than 1352 times.  He’s going to be plenty entertained watching the new house go up over the next several months.

Having a little picnic with Susan watching the action…

At the window checking out the excavator tearing down the house…

No more house!

We’ll see what goes up in it’s place!

Report 3:  Maxwell is becoming a Master Gardener.  Not really, but he did “help” me plant a few things last weekend.

I’m trying tomato plants for the first time in my big pots.  Anyone had luck with them before?  I got two varieties – one is a cherry tomato and one is more medium sized like a roma tomato.  I’m keeping very low expectations but am excited to see what happens.  Of course, I might have already messed up before they even had a chance because I realized AFTER I put them in the pots that I got soil that is only to be used with vegetables being grown in the ground, not in pots.  Oh well.  If nothing else it will be a lesson for next year!

See you all tomorrow!