Three Years Old!!!

WHAT!
Yes Bradley is officially 3!

After our visit from the Grandparents, Bradley was under the impression that his birthday was coming very soon. So for a few weeks we had to continually tell Brad, first Halloween and then it is your birthday. Somewhere along the way he also decided his "burday party" was going to be awesome. I figured I should actually throw him a birthday party in order for his day to be awesome.

We had a pirate pipa party! 

Complete with a treasure hunt and gold doubloons!

We shook "cannon balls" and walked the plank to find the pieces of the treasure map that led to the treasure!

Later that night we opened family presents and had cake and ice cream. 

 Clearly a pirate-tatsic birthday party kinda day.
I'm so proud of you Bradley! You are the cutest and sweetest three year old I have ever met! And a pretty good big brother too. (Brad requested that he and Luke both wear their pirate puppies shirts. See, such a sweet big bro.)

Farewell Endeavour

When Bradley was just 6 months old we took a road trip down to Flordia to watch the Space Shuttle Atlantis take off. It was the second to last space shuttle, from the NASA program, ever to launch. A historic event. Today we watched the Space Shuttle Endeavour, riding on a 747, take its final flight - which is the final final flight for all NASA space shuttles. It will land in LAX and then ride to a museum where it will be displayed. All this sadly signifys the end of the NASA Space program. No further human space explorations are scheduled or even planned for. -Correct me if I'm wrong-

 

 

It just so happened that Tim and Lou Saponas, my in laws, are visiting us. So you can see everyone watching as the Endeavour comes over the Sierra Mountains and into the Antelope Valley.

 

 

 

If flew rather close to us! Palmdale happens to be the actual birth place of the Endeavour. It was litterally built here. There is a road named after it for goodness sake! So naturally it had to do one last fly over in omage to its first home.

 

 

I had to zoom out it was so close! What a great shot if I do say so myself! You can freaking see the heat tiles on the bottom!

 

 

 

 Bradley thought it was very cool and proceeded to tell me for the rest of the morning, Mommy that Cool!! That airplane COOL!!

 

 Um this is where I live. If you questioned what the "desert" looks like, well this is it. Although apparently these Joshua trees are endangered and only grow here. It is actually illegal to cut one down if you have one in your yard. You have to wait till it falls down to remove it.

 

 

Our little family. I had Luke with me while I took photos and watched. I'm really happy that we were able to be here to say goodbye to such a world changing program. I really do hope we will start human space exploration again someday. It is just that cool.

What Manner of Mother am I?

I ponder this question often, especially when I have the opportunity to spend time with another mother with young children. I always compare our mothering methods, our temperaments towards our children, our patience, our adorance of our children, our knowledge of the world vs the innate knowledge of being a mother, how the gospel is approached and taught in their home. I know, wow, I sound like an obsessively insecure person. But I can't help it, I learn so much about myself in this process. I learn so much about how many mothers there are, how we are all different, but how we all have unique amazing qualities that make us the perfect mother for our child.

More often than not I'm hard on myself and desire to have better, other, more experienced, mothering qualities. Mostly I struggle with patience, grumpiness, and my natural mother knowledge (which is nonexistent). But this always provides the opportunity to reflect on my own two years of motherhood and see how much I have changed in this short time.

Maybe I am just resistant to change, or don't naturally have the mothering gene, but I found the transition from independent woman to whole giver of self kinda hard. Maybe I'm just more selfish than other mothers, but it is not easy for me to drop what I'm working on and run over to my baby and jiggle a toy above their head to please them. It has taken practice and patience as I work to forget my desires and focus on my child's needs. I value this quality in other mothers. How did they get it!?

In my transition to motherhood I did get one surprise mothering ability! From the first night I  could easily wake up and hop out of bed to calm, feed, rock my lonely little infant. I never had a problem initially leaving my sleep behind for my little guy. I greatly missed my sleep, but I could get over that uggg time to get out of bed feelig. I admit now it is sometimes a little harder to jump out of bed at the littlest sound. But I can still do it, and I always feel a warm surge of gooey love when I hold my cranky toddler and he cuddles into my arms.

Anyways, after all the frustration that I'm not like that other "perfect" mother, I remind myself that after all, I've only been a mother for 2 years. Heavenly Father sent Bradley to me, my family, because he knew we would all grow in love and experience together. And, absolutely no one else has ever mothered Bradley Saponas. SO I can stop worrying about being that ideal mother for him, he already thinks I am.

2 Year Old Boy

Bradley is 2 years old! He is in the multiple years old! Which also means I've been a mom for two years- an equally odd thought. We wanted to celebrate the completion of Brad's second year of life by doing all his favorite things.

We started our day with eggs and pancakes. Then we went to the gym (you may think this was a selfish parent move but Bradley really loves playing with the other kids). Then we went to see the airplanes!

 Both Brian and Bradley LOVED walking around and in the airplanes!

Next, we had lunch at a pasta place so Bradley could get some spaghetti with red sauce and we came home and Bradley took a nap while I baked a cake.
After Bradley woke up and was not grumpy, we played "Portland's Clues!" Which is just like "Blue's Clues" but Portland left the pawprints around the house not Blue. Bradley caught on right away and started running between the rooms looking for the paw prints. This is a pic of Daddy and Brad writing down the third clue (which you can see under the shoes).

 Of course Portland led Bradley outside to play frisbee. Brad loves running around outside. He is so so on the frisbee aspect of playing outside.

 After pizza we opened presents and ate cake! I made a special banana cake for Brad (and I didn't even mess it up!) Banana custard filling and blue paw prints on the outside, super yummy and cute.

 He got a bathtub bubble blower, train toy and..... a big boy basketball hoop!

 

Best Birthday Ever.

Brad's First Camping Trip!

October is my fave month in Georgia. The leaves change and the weather cools down. After my last few experiences of camping while pregnant in Georgia in the summer, I have learned that it is not enjoyable. But this year, THIS YEAR, we decided it would be fun to let Bradley experience "camping in georgia." I simply refused to do it during the summer, and there wasn't much time to anyways.

Brian and I grew up camping in Oregon, so rain really doesn't scare us. We didn't really think much of the high percent chance of rain for the North Georgia Mountains. We kept on planning and packing.

This is what it looked like 10 minutes from our destination...

15 minutes later it started to pour.

So we spent the next 45 minutes in the car in our camping spot! Bradley thought this was a most excellent way to start a camping trip. Portland was less than excited about both the rain and the toddler crawling all over her.

Our heroic Daddy started setting up camp during one of the breaks. Georgia rain is nothing like Oregon rain. It poured HARD for 15 minutes. Took a break. Rained at a harder level for another 10 minutes, took a break again. And then lightened up for a little longer and continued in this light rain and break pattern for an hour or two.

Portland was unhappy, but Bradley thought wandering around the campsite was very fun.

Bradley did have a small freakout moment in the tent after dinner. He thought dad was lost in outerdarkness because he wasn't inside the tent. But eventually Daddy came in the tent and was able to settle Bradley down and we all had a nice snuggle. I was 20% on thinking we might have to bail out and drive home in the middle of the night. But he ended up snuggling with Dad all night long and woke up a happy camer! 

Camping breakfasts are always the best. Pancakes, scraballed eggs and sausage! Happy tummies.

Before we broke camp we hiked all 604 steps up and then 604 back down Amicalola Falls. Last time I tried this hike I was slightly pregnant and it was near 90 degrees outside. I did not make it back up the falls. In fact on this trip I insisted we start at the bottom instead of the top.

My happy hikers were all thrilled to see the waterfall!

Then we had to hike back down down down down.

THEN (and the real reason for coming to Amicalola) We went to Burt's Pumpkin Patch! Which is just down the road! Last year it was so much fun (minus an offroading excursion) we had to go again!

Awe. Kisses for the Dads.

Dad let our little helper pick out some gords. He was very excited to put his own pumpkins into the wheelbarrow.

Best camping trip ever.

Rides - Disney Wolrd

Clearly the most exciting part of any Disney experience are the rides. Unless you travel with the Saponases and all they can talk about is the food for the previous three months to the trip.
Bradley, however, was quite thrilled with the ride aspect of our trip.

Safari Ride - Animal Kingdom

Rockin Rollercoaster - Hollywood Studios

The Car Thing - Magic Kindom

SPLASH MOUNTAIN! - The best ride in the whole world - Magic Kingdom

Peter Pan - 2nd Best for Brad - Magic Kingdom

Mission: Earth - Epcot

Triceritops Spin - Animal Kingdom

Jungle Cruise - Possibly Brian's fave ride if you get a good guide - Magic Kindom

Carousel!! - Bradley's All Time Fave!!! - Magic Kingdom

He would get sooo excited when ever we were in visual range that we started taking alternate routes through the park so he wouldn't see it. I can't believe the whole Saponas family, all the slightly weak stomached amoung them, went on this ride every single time Bradley wanted to. Luckily we only waited in line once for it, and walked on it every other time... not so for Peter Pan- which caused a nearly equal enthusiastic reaction from Brad.