Red Top Mountain

So around this time, one year ago we took a little hike. 

I am proud to say that this year's "first hike of the season" was much more successful!

 

We went 15 minutes up to Red Top Mountain and hiked their Homestead Trail. Beautiful!! It is a 5.5 mile trail, and 1/3 of it follows along some of Lake Allitoona. 

Bradley rode in the kid backpack again, and he really liked it. Brian complained more than Bradley did this time. 

We hiked for 2.5 miles or so and decided to sit down and have our lunch- we packed sandwiches from Panera, how rugged of us. After a half an hour of Dad saying, "We are almost there Brad, we just need to find a place." We sat our selves down on the ground - which was rugged! After our sandwiches we walked around the bend to find a lovely bench which we could have eaten at. Predictable, oh well.

After lunch, Bradley wanted to keep walking. So we donned a Bradley pace for a while before we couldn't take it any longer and plopped him back in the backpack again. Which he didn't mind.

 
Don't they look SO cute in their nearly matching shirts!
Portland equally loved the hike, and proved it so by smelling every little thing the entire 5.5 miles. Brian told me I don't write enough about her in our blog and to include how happy she was on our hike.

Everyone had so much fun, it didn't rain, it didn't thunderstorm, we had a map, and we correctly followed the map. I think we will definitely go back and hike this trail because it is so close and so pretty!

Water Torture

Last night Brian was making us wonderful crab cakes, Bradley was helping of course, and Brian had a slightly clumsy moment and dropped the open vegetable oil. I should say he has been having a slightly clumsy weekend, because this was now the second time this weekend I got to clean the kitchen floors. Anyways, I offered to clean up while Brian finished making the remoulade sauce for the crab cakes. A few seconds later Bradley shrieks and Brian and I both look up to see him rubbing an eye. Then Brian yells, "Bradley, did you get Tabasco in your eye!!!"

Not pausing to ask how on earth this would happen, I grab the baby and soak a paper towel in water and begin flushing his eye out- which of course Bradley does not enjoy. After a minute or two I pause to see if I'm actually helping the situation and as soon as I let go of Bradley he calms down and appears as though nothing is wrong. I begin examining his eyes and find they look the same. Surely if you got Tabasco in your eye it would be bright red. I look at Brian and ask how Brad got Tabasco in his eye to which Brian says, "I don't know, maybe it dripped in just the right way?"
I examined the rest of Bradley and didn't find anything wrong. At this point I realized I may have given my son a little water torture for no reason. Oops.

New Carpet

In the midst of the craziness of april, we got new carpet. We had a slight toilet issue last month-  nothing big, just gushing sewage onto some of our carpet. But I forgot to post some pics of our fresh new carpet!

Old carpet, empty room.

Okay, so maybe I'll elaborate on the story. Toilet practically explodes one Friday night, we spend the night in a hotel. The next day the plumber fixes it, but the carpet is still really gross, so we rip up the soaked parts. New carpet is needed. After a week of shopping, we order carpet. A few weeks later inlaws get into town. The second day of their visit I get a call that says we can either have the new carpet installed in the next hour, or we can wait 10 days for another appointment.

Cut to 30 mintuets later and we have the above and below pics.

My inlaws are so cool and literally jumped into action and helped me move all the furniture into the other room within minutes. Which was good, because the carpet guys called a few minutes later.

This is our new carpet!!

We went with Home Depot, Platinum Plus Collection, Sandy-Beach. I think it does look like a sandy beach. How soothing. It is so soft and plush to lay on, and it doesn't show dirty puppy feet!

I think it looks pretty good all put together again.

cracks me up

nuff said.

Easter Bliss

Easter day #1

 The Easter Bunny visited us! Bradley was thrilled to see so many baskets just for him!

 While no one was looking, he grabbed a candy and managed to open it no prob. This, it turns out, was his favorite part of Easter. For days afterward he kept track of the candy bowl and would point and cry at it ever time he remember it was there.

Then we dyed easter eggs! Grandma was an expert halfsie egg color-er.  Brad was fascinated for a few minutes, then he just liked trying to tip the cups over.

Day #2!

Grandma & Grandpa flew out Sunday morning, but we had a nice Easter afternoon together.

 We came home from church and began cooking our easter feast! Potatoes, ham, salads, the works! Then one by one our dinner guests called and told us they each had someone in their family that was sick and they coudn't joins us. However... they wanted to bring their food over for eveyone else.

So we divied up the food and sent most of it back home with our friends.. and then ate a HUGE dinner with the works!

 Then we had a little easter egg hunt for brad. He remembered that candy is inside easter eggs, so he eagerly gathered all the eggs up! I don't think he minded that I forgot to give our dinner guests their portion of the easter eggs. Oh well.

Happy Easter!

Sick Babies are No fun.

We started off the week so chipper and fun!

I call this, ode to Mickey. We start off each week pretty much the same. Brad wakes up, we eat breakfast, and then we go upstairs and print off a new Mickey pic to color. This takes up a good portion of the morning. I highly recommend it.

 Then we play trains for the next half of the morning! Then snack and nap! It is a very excellent way to start out a week, and usually yields a very happy baby.

 I guess most of the week was good. But on Thursday Bradley had a fever.
And Friday wasn't much better.

 I don't mind high fevers... 102 ish. Much higher than 102 is scary, and much lower is painful for more than just Bradley.
I don't know how your families respond to sickness, but as soon as the lower fever sets in that is when my guy is inconsolable.  Every little thing is actually the end of the world, and further, all the things that I cannot interpret also equal the end of the world.

So you do everything in your power to keep your sweet, sick little guy happy for as long as possible. (And send many prayers to heaven hoping to keep your patience in check while your toddler screams for no curable reason.)

 

 There was a lot of Disney Channel playing in my house this week. I try not to watch too much tv during the day, like none, but when I have a sick little boy who only wants to sit with mom or dad (mostly mom though), mom and dad NEED something else to distract Brad.

 

Daddy was very good about entertaining Brad while I ate my food, but this was too cute to miss. Apparently the "Leader" climbed on the coffee table and started to dance around when he was tired of singning "following the leader."

 

 

 Dad's entertainment tricks went so far as putting the puppy on the slide. (yes that is me with a mouthful of food trying to hold back the laughter.) Bradley was more than happy to help push Portland down the slide. Sweet boy, helping the dog overcome her fears.

Naked Baby Morning

Some mornings just need to be fun. So after Brad insisted on a diaper change I just let him run wild. Then he peed on the floor. Then I put a diaper on and let him run wild once more.
He definatly prefered the full monty side of life, but he was quite content to run half free also.

I had my nice camera out so I thought I'd snap a few artistic shots of my little toddler playn around. This is pretty much how most mornings go. Breakfast and then play time. What a life.

Then we had to get dressed for the day. Naturally we had to celebrate the Blazer's victory over the Jazz with a little Blazer fan power!!

Good Mornings are the simple ones.



See more photos on our web album. Here!