The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

Birthday roundup

We celebrated Robert’s birthday on Thursday of last week.  Robert requested a chocolate chocolate cake. Turning 37 is a pretty big deal so I pulled out all the stops and made him a cake from a box…and then iced it with icing from a can…and it was darn good.  🙂  Maxwell decorated the cake…

robert birthday cake

Orange sprinkles and a variety of animal candles all placed by him.  Perfect!  I kept catching him sneaking a lick of that icing…

robert bday cake

Guess he likes the canned icing too!

The boys were so excited to celebrate Dad’s birthday and couldn’t wait for him to get home from work…

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We had a nice little birthday dinner and then all enjoyed that cake…

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especially Spencey!

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It might not have been the exciting birthday parties of his youth, but I think he liked his little family party just as much…

robert bday

box cake and all.  🙂

Birthday!

It’s my birthday!  The big Three Five. Man, that sounds old…but I don’t feel old.  I’m not in college anymore (as was proved this past weekend when I lived it up with my college girlfriends in Miami!), but I’m not ready for the mom jeans quite yet. Yep, 35 seems like it’s going to be pretty good.  I’ve got all that I ever wanted (well, minus a money tree. and maybe a little girl!) but I’ve got all that matters and, for that, I’m very grateful.  Very grateful for my family, very grateful for my sweet boys – all 3 of them – and very grateful for all the adventure the past 35 years have brought.  Here’s to the next 35!

For my birthday, I thought I’d do a little picture round up of the past year like I did for Robert last week.  Does this seem a little self-important? perhaps. But doesn’t this whole blog? exactly. Warning – there’s a lot of selfies in this round-up because, well, that’s just about the only way my picture gets taken most of the time!  But I keep doing it because I have to believe that someday my boys are going to love seeing so many pics of them with their momma (who loves them more than anything).

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Here’s to 35! May it bring love, laughter, and adventures big and small!

Robert’s Birthday!

Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday, dear Robert! Happy Birthday to you!

Robert, I know 3 things to be true…

This little guy adores you…

spb and rbb

This big guy thinks you’re the best thing around (even if he is on a bit of a momma kick right now!)…

rbb and mbb

and I love you most of all!

robert's birthday

Here’s to a great year ahead full of nothing but good things!!  We love you!

Happy weekend to you all!

Soccer Soccer Soccer

Soccer game 3 was fun!  I wouldn’t say Maxwell is the next David Beckham but…hey, who is?  I have figured out that Maxwell likes the practice part of soccer much more than the game part.  Good to know.  Now, we were still a little tired and pitiful from the HFM sickness so I’m going to blame a little bit of the lack of play on that.

Before everyone else got there, Maxwell had fun warming up with Coach Dad…

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I think he was liking having that field all to himself!

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But, he was glad when some blue teammates showed up and they got ready to work on some drills…

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Coach Robert runs em pretty hard!

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Yep, they had a pretty serious game of Red Light Green Light going on!

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soccer game 3

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Red Light Green Light is definitely Maxwell’s favorite part of soccer!

Meanwhile, Spencey was hanging out in this genius contraption…

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Why didn’t I think of that?!

Pretty soon it was game time!  Gotta huddle up and strategize…

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Maxwell actually got out there during the first half.  I’d say his field time totaled aboooout 2 minutes.  But, he made that most of that 2 minutes!

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During the game, Spencey made a friend…

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Riley was so sweet to him and definitely more interested in playing with the baby than playing soccer!  🙂  She then gave him her purple soccer ball and he was one happy camper!

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Halftime and everyone regrouped…and Coach Robert gave a little pep talk.

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Then, after MUCH convincing, Maxwell made his 2nd-half field appearance for about a minute and a half!

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and he did GREAT!  Look, I understand where he’s coming from.  He juuuuust turned 3 and a lot of these kids are about to turn 4.  That’s a big difference that can be pretty overwhelming to a little guy…especially when there’s 7 of them out on the field all trying to kick one ball!  And, for the record, there were two other kids that played even less than Maxwell did.  We’ve got some reluctant soccer players on Team Blue!

I wasn’t keeping score but given how many goals Nate the Ringer scored, I’d say Blue Team was victorious! We were, of course, gracious winners and shook hands with the losers…

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and then everyone got to enjoy the best part of soccer – snacks!  No one even messed around with fruit this week.  Just Nilla Wafers straight up.  Nice.

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Three cheers for my soccer player…whether he actually plays or not!  🙂