At the Park

My boys love the park

Especially Brendan.

He must ask to go to the park at least once a week,

Luckily we have a park in our housing community,

perfectly within walking distance.

I can make my kids day just by saying 5 simple words:

"Let's go to the park!"

While Brendan HATES the swing,

Caleb is still at the age where anything outside is fun.

"And if it means playing with Mommy and big brother, I'm in!"

The slide is of course a big hit with Brendan,

This was first time they have gone down together,

Surprisingly,

Brendan did not protest helping his brother go down the slide,

As long as we are at the park,

he is a perfect angel

"Please don't make me go home!"

The wagon is the easiest way to get to the park.

Brendan likes to be Mommy's-little-helper and pull Caleb in the wagon.

If only he knew it would be easier on Mommy to just ride with brother. There is nothing better than an afternoon at the park with my boys!

Caleb 9 months pictures

Last week we took Caleb to get his picture taken at JCPenneys. I think they did a great job this time with their pictures. Unfortunately, Caleb was teething with a runny nose and hurting gums so his smile isn't as big as usual, but I got a few cute shots! Although is wasn't my absolute favorite picture, a got the second pose as a 10x13 to hang on our wall. He is smiling and it is a snapshot of his development at this time in his life, about to take off crawling. Plus, he looks so grown-up in his polo shirt and blue jeans!

We brought along Caleb's fire truck and his book for the picture. One of Caleb's favorite toys and it matched the fire truck shirt so well! I love the 2nd pose, his little bare feet and him holding on to his truck! I am just so in love with these big blue eyes!

Family Photos

This year, since my parents had all their children & grandchildren all in one house for Thanksgiving, we took a few nice family photos. If you are Facebook friends with my parents, and/or follow my dad's or sister's blog, you may be a little tired of seeing these photos over and over again. But they turned out so well, I thought I would also post the family pictures for viewing. Currently, there are 11 of us all together. I can only imagine what the picture will look like in 5-10 years!

The Keys Family: Scott, Caleb, Myself & Brendan

The Atkinson Family: Kevin, Bekah & Lily

(Whats left of) The Reed Family: JT (Bud), Dad, Mom & Jon

The Family Picture

Grammi & Pepa with the grandkidsBrendan was defiantly done with pictures at this point. We were using candy to get a semi-decent shot.

It is nice to have the documentation of the family all together. I will give a Thanksgiving post soon! Just need to gather all the pictures into one spot...

Brendan's 2-year-old Pictures

Although it was late, I finally took Brendan to go get his 2-year-old pictures. I think it was so late because I was procrastinating taking him in for pictures. My kid hardly ever sit still and so to take him to a new place and ask him to sit and smile, just didn't feel like a good idea. But we went anyway.

Almost 4 months after his 2nd birthday, I finally took him to JCPenny's Portrait Studio. The woman was nice, she had a kid of her own (and one on the way) but I think that her little girl was more used to taking photos than my hyper Brendan. She kept asking him to "sit on the light" which was not going over well. Then she tried to spell out "T-W-O" with Brendan, which I thought was a waste of time since I told her I was only purchasing one shot. It was pretty cute, but you can see she was only able to get the "O" and "W", never the "T". So much for that! She did make an adorable Thank You card, but I didn't need any of those...

Finally she got him to play with some boxes, she stacked them up and told him to stand next to them...umm...hello? He's two! You just stacked boxes, what do you think I 2-year-old is going to do with those? He tried to sit on the bottom box and they all fell over, this was a fun game for Brendan! She re-stacked them and he knocked them over about 6 times. I finally asked her for a stool or something that he could sit on so he had a defined spot. This is the shot I ultimately ended up with, as you can see I didn't really have many choices. It was this one (with the random Orange box on top) or the first one with his cheesy half-smile (although I really do love the picture of him in the "O" it just didn't seem to be the right pose to choose!)
My mother says, some years are better than others. Here's hoping 3 is easier than 2!

Picture That! Unka Jon!

Brendan has a great time with all of his relatives. But out of everyone, his favorite is my littlest brother, "Unka Jon!" Whenever my brother comes to town, Brendan gets so excited.

"Jon? Jon?" is all I hear. I love seeing my brother and my son bond.

No question about who the favorite is!

Picture That! Sunglasses

Just me and the boy. Goin' places in style!

Caleb 3 month pictures

Wow, I am really bad at blogging this year. I could blame it on the kiddos, or stress at work, or the fact that my "spare time" is sparse. But if I was honest, the real reason would be that I just haven't done it. Call it procrastination, call it lack of drive, but either way, I have been slacking. I will try harder (must husband reminds me that when you say you will try, you are allowing yourself to fail.) Either way, lets move on!

Caleb is almost 4 months old! 17 weeks! Crazy how fast the time goes! We went to JCPenney a couple weeks ago and took his 3 month pictures. 3 months is not really my favorite age to take photos. Newborn they are fairly moldable to the pictures you want, and 6 months they are sitting up and able to look cute. 3 months is somewhat of an awkward stage, the hold up their head pretty well, but they just lay there. They are learning to smile but have multiple chins while doing so. Baby acne is still somewhat present, baby is fidgety and not very cooperative and the pictures just never turn out as cute as I would want. Don't get me wrong, I think my child is simply adorable, these pictures just never show what I see in my baby.

Nevertheless, 3 months is the tradition, and so here you are:

More updates to come...I promise!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Bathtub Fun!

Brendan at 20 Months Old. I just love those Big Eyes!

18 months pictures

I debated back and forth whether or not to get pictures done for Brendan at 18 months. I just had them doe for his 1 year, and I will do it again at 2 years. but I decided to go ahead and take pictures at 18 months. After getting the pictures done, I realized how much he has changed from his 1 year pictures!



We went to Sears to get his picture taken on Tuesday the 9th. I was very impressed with our photographer, she did an excellent job! She was able to capture some cute poses of our active toddler even though he was a little off!


I know the pictures are small, but there are a lot of them! In the pictures, Brendan is wearing little cowboy boots that belong to my little brother. I love the boots, Brendan was not as thrilled with them and had trouble walking in them. But they made for cute pictures! The sweater he is wearing was a gift from a coworker. She thought it looked like a "Teacher sweater" and since Scott is a teacher, we just had to have it!


I'm having trouble picking my favorite one, I think the last one is my favorite, although there are a lot of cute poses. What do you think?