The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

  • Home
  • FAQs
  • About

The North Pole

December 12, 2012

On Sunday, we all took a little trip to North Pole to visit someone very special! Luckily, we had tickets for an express train ride so we were able to get back home in time for dinner!

Maxwell was SO excited to ride the train and see Santa. I’m not sure how much he fully understands about the whole Santa thing, but he knows he really wants a fire truck and, as he’s been told, Santa will bring him one so he’s all in! He also loves trains so the whole night was a win-win!

Spencer was ready to meet the jolly man too…

Me and my boys ready to go!

Handing over his ticket to get on the North Pole Express!

We were all pretty excited to be on the train…

and Maxwell even got a glowstick! oooh!

There were all sorts of fun lights and decorations to look at on our trip and we listened to a story over the loudspeaker. When we arrived at the North Pole, Santa and Mrs. Claus were outside waving to everyone!

Maxwell had to go on the other side of the train to see them but this nice lady let him sit in her lap. I really can’t believe he sat in her lap for as long as he did! She said she could feel his little heart just beating a mile a minute when he saw Santa out there!

While waiting for Santa, some elves came on board and gave everyone a special present…

and Maxwell visited with some of the other kids on the train.

Then Santa and Mrs. Claus were on our train car and stopped to visit each kid! When Santa got to our seat, Maxwell pinned himself so tight against Robert…

He was TERRIFIED! Robert said he could literally feel Maxwell shaking!

Despite being scared to death, he still managed to eek out that he wanted a fire truck for Christmas! sweet, sweet boy! He just watched Santa with big eyes the whole time…

But, once Santa was past us, he was happy again and happily waved Bye-Bye to Santa when he left!

After Santa’s visit, the elves came back and gave everyone hot chocolate and chocolate muffins (why not cookies? who knows?!)

Maxwell didn’t care if it was muffins or cookies, as long as it was “choc!”

It was a great night! Can’t wait to visit the North Pole again next year!!

ps – today is 12.12.12! Cool!

Would love to hear from you! 4 Comments
Filed Under: Holidays, MBB, Robert, SPB

MBB update

December 11, 2012

Maxwell is now 27 months old and fun as ever. The things he says and does are just funny. He’s a little repeating machine too – he literally repeats everything Robert and I say. We need to be very careful with our language now!

He’s really starting to string words together to make sentences and it’s so neat to watch his little brain process everything. Some of the things he’s really into now…

Santa! or “shansha” as he says! That and, “me no like shansha’s lap!” But, he LOVES to talk about how he’s going to ask Santa for a fire truck! I’ve finally convinced him that he should ask for a train track too (because santa told me that’s what he’s getting!) 🙂

He loves pointing out all the Christmas trees, wreaths and red bows around town. He also loves to see all the Christmas lights. “Lights ON!”

All he wants to do every day is “watch elmo? watch elmo? watch elmo?” I clearly need to cut the tv time! He’s also into Finding Nemo and Bob the Builder but Sesame Street is still king.

His absolute favorite expression right now is “I need that”…yea. He says it all the time whenever he wants something. “I need that.” No, buddy, you don’t!

He’s mastered his letters but we’re still working on counting. I often hear him counting out 1, 2, 5! ha! We’ll get there!

He really loves Spencer. Honestly the first thing he asks when I get him up in the morning is usually “where ya-ya?” and when I pick him up from school his first question is “where ya-ya?” So happy these boys get to grow up together!

He’s back to being a great sleeper. He goes down for a nap between 1 and 2:00 and will sleep 2 to 3 hours. At night he sleeps from 8:00 to around 7:30. Yay!

He doesn’t walk anywhere – he runs. He runs all over this house, usually in full fireman gear including two black gloves!

He’s definitely got a sweet tooth like his momma! Last week a friend brought us dinner and included an entire pan of brownies. One night after dinner I asked him if he’d like some chocolate. Needless to say, he loved it! For the next several nights as soon as he finished dinner, he’d ask for ‘ssert (dessert) and “choc? milk?” I wasn’t sorry when the brownies ran out because he started to think you got ‘ssert after every meal and even asked for some choc and milk after breakfast one day! boy after my own heart! 😉

I could not love this funny, sweet, sensitive, loving little boy any more. He tests my patience every single day but then I look at him and just thank my lucky stars that he’s mine.

He’s pretty awesome.

Would love to hear from you! 3 Comments
Filed Under: MBB, To remember updates

Candy House

December 10, 2012

Growing up, one of my favorite Christmas traditions was the candy house that my brother and I would decorate every year.  It’s sort of like a gingerbread house but it is a house made of wood that we would cover in icing and candy.  I always loved doing it!  Here’s me and my brother with our candy house circa 1986…

Oh yea!  We still have that original wooden candy house but it’s staying at GJ and Daddo’s.  But, over Thanksgiving, my mom surprised me and my brother with our own candy houses hand-made by my dad and Marc!  Best gift ever!!  I am SO excited to start the candy house tradition with my boys!!

On Friday, Maxwell, Spencer and I set out to decorate it.  We had plenty of icing and candy…

First we covered it in icing.  Maxwell was a big help…

A really big help…

Yep, such a big help.

See that side of the roof?  That’s about all the icing he actually got on the house!  🙂

Unfortunately, my other helper was feeling a little bah humbug during the decorating process…

I think he was just sad he wasn’t getting to “help” the way Maxwell was!

We then put all the candy on and, again, my assistant was really helpful…

How did I get so lucky to have such a good helper?!  🙂

In the end, we ended up with a fantastic looking candy house (that Maxwell actually really did help decorate)…

and two happy boys!

Can’t wait to continue this tradition every year!  Ho ho ho!

Would love to hear from you! 9 Comments
Filed Under: Firsts, House, MBB, SPB

Friday!

December 7, 2012

First, happy birthday to cousin Laura today!  Hope it’s a great one!

Second, I haven’t forgotten about the pics of the outdoor decorations…coming asap I promise!

Third, some pics of sweet Spencer from this week…

love this little crooked smile!

Sleeping babies are the best…

He’s really starting to interact more, smile lots and coo a little. I love him more and more every day!  The fact that he’s been a GREAT sleeper is helping that too!  🙂

Fourth, some iphone pics from the last two weeks…

Finally, 2 more iphone pics because I like them.  Chubby legs…

and happy boys!

Hope you guys have a great weekend.  We’re planning to enjoy it with some Christmas light viewing, candy house making and plenty of Christmas music listening (including my fave Christmas CD)!  See you Monday!

Would love to hear from you! 4 Comments
Filed Under: SPB

Birthday Birthday Birthday!

December 6, 2012

Today is a very special day!  There are TWO fun birthdays to celebrate.  First, Maxwell’s cousin Savannah turns ONE!  Happy, happy birthday Savannah!

Second, Daddo’s birthday is today!  Hooray!  We are so glad we’ve gotten to see Daddo so much lately on his trips back and forth to Arkansas and can’t wait to see him even more over the Christmas holiday.  Daddo, we hope it’s a zip-a-dee-doo-da kind of day!  Enjoy the cookies that are coming your way!  🙂

Maxwell and Spencer wanted to send Daddo some Happy Birthday wishes of their own so I made a sign for them to hold and things went a little something like this…

Hmmm…what does this sign say?  I see a D and a B and two P’s…

What are you laughing at ya-ya?  You can’t read it either you know!

Oh, that’s ok ya-ya.  I know you’re just laughing because you’re excited it’s Daddo’s birthday.  

I’m excited too and hope Daddo has a great birthday!

Here, why don’t you hold the sign yourself…

Perfect!

Maxwell then thought it would be a good idea to take his brother outside with him to pose for more pictures…

But then realized that almost 12 lbs of baby is pretty heavy…

So instead he covered him up with burp cloths and told him to “stay!” (Maxwell can be a little bossy).

Maxwell then went outside and decided to pose with the next best thing…

A fire truck! Doesn’t get much better than that!  (like that face?  that’s his new “say cheese!” face…goodness!)

Happy Birthday Daddo!  We hope your day is as fun two firetrucks!  We love you!

Would love to hear from you! 8 Comments
Filed Under: Birthdays, Family, MBB, SPB

« Previous Page
Next Page »

Welcome!



So glad you're here! Stay a while and follow us as we capture the memories of our adventures one photo at a time...

Connect

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • RSS

Search

Categories

  • anniversary
  • appendicitis
  • Array
  • Baby Gear
  • BB3
  • BBB
  • Birthdays
  • broken leg
  • Camp
  • Dance
  • Doctor updates
  • Family
  • Firsts
  • Food
  • Friday Favorites
  • Friday Funny
  • Hawaii
  • Holidays
  • House
  • House Tour
  • Italy
  • MBB
  • Monthly photo
  • New House
  • NYC
  • Paris
  • Photography
  • Pregnancy
  • Quarantine
  • Robert
  • school
  • Scouts
  • SKB
  • Sleeping
  • SPB
  • sports
  • Story of Us
  • talking
  • To remember updates
  • Travel
  • Tutorials
  • Uncategorized
  • Visitors

Archives

The First Year – of all 3!




">

































“It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Feel free to link to anything you see here but do not use my photographs or content without permission. Copyright 2018.
DESIGN BY DESIGNER BLOGS