happy valentine's day

Bryce had a great first Valentine's Day! His daddy bought him a red heart shaped balloon. Of course I don't have any pictures of him with it, but it has entertained him for hours since he got it on Saturday. Bryce also got some clothes and money for Valentine's Day. We went and visited MeMaw and PaPa today and Bryce enjoyed riding in the toy box!

We started the day off at McDonald's for breakfast. We had a great family breakfast and Bryce enjoyed his pancake.

We took Bryce to Nana and Pappy's house after church. He ate lunch, napped, and played while Jason and I got to go out for some alone time. I think this was only our second date since Bryce was born. We went to Chili's for lunch and then we did a little shopping. It sure was fun!

Hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day!

last february 13

Thought I would do a little more reminiscing. Here is a picture of me 1 year ago today. I always said pregnancy was the only time you could be fat and cute. When I look back at my pregnancy pictures, I see fat, but I sure don't see cute, ha! I guess I never realized pregnant people on tv weren't really pregnant. That's why they had a cute little belly and a small face. I swear my face grew as round as my belly! At any rate, it is fun to take a look back.

12 days to go

(a.k.a.....12 days until my little boy is 1...W.O.W)

L.O.V.E.....sugar

Happy Valentine's Day (a little early)

I think the best thing about being a teacher, well besides snow days and summer vacation (and of course the gratification of shaping young minds), is Valentine's Day. If you know us well, you know that Valentine's Day does not exist in Jason's world. I'm okay with that, believe it or not. I give him a hard time about it every year, but I really don't care. But back to why I love being a teacher. I love celebrating Valentine's Day with the students. I get plenty of candy and love from my students every year. Today I brought home a ton of chocolate, Valentine cards, and a bunch of other random candy like Bryce is snacking on below! It's all the Valentine's I really need anyway.

I used to keep dum-dums around for Bryce when he got hurt or when he was in a bad mood and needed a little pick me up. He used to take a few licks and then he was satisfied. Well, now he has learned how to hold a lollipop and a few licks WON'T do, ha! He has to hold it until the last bite. I decided a red Valentine lollipop would be the perfect addition to the white shirt he wore today (you will see the destruction below).

It's a masterpiece!

"snowmageddon"/"snowpocalypse"

I mostly did this post because my goal is to post once a day this month. I don't know how people do it. I have been at home and not at work almost everyday this month and it is still impossible. I have not posted everyday, but I have posted more than once in a day so today's post makes number 11 and today is February 11 so it counts! I was pretty impressed that I actually posted the last 4 days of January, too.

While we have not been hit as hard in terms of amounts of snow as other parts of Virginia have, I can still use the terms "snowmageddon" and "snowpocalypse" because we have been hit with a snowstorm every weekend with a few during the week since the start of February. I wanted to detail my work schedule since the start of this month. And I linked each day to it's original post.

Thursday, January 28 - last full day with my students

Friday, January 29 - professional development day (no students)

Saturday, January 30 - snow storm

Sunday, January 31 - church is cancelled for the first time in a LONG time

Monday, February 1 - No school - snow (2 posts today, didn't know what to do with all of my free time, ha!)

Tuesday, February 2 - No school - snow (2 posts again today, who knew I could blog and do house work during nap time?!?)

Wednesday, February 3 - No school - snow (1 post)

Thursday, February 4 - Back to school - 2 hr delay (I knew I wouldn't blog today. I had to work, duh! I even told you in the post the day before that I wouldn't be blogging.)

Friday, February 5 - No School - More snow (2 posts today, I sure do love snow days, especially when my hubby is home, too!)

Saturday, February 6 - more snow (1 post today)

Sunday, February 7 - finally got to go to church (No posts today, we were really busy. But technically I was ahead of schedule for a post a day!)

Monday, February 8 - No school - roads still icy (1 post today)

Tuesday, February 9 - Back to school - 2 hr delay (No posts today. I was too busy working, ha!)

Wednesday, February 10 - No school - more snow (1 post today which is quite impressive because I was feeling a bit under the weather.)

Thursday, February 11 - Back to school - 2 hr delay (And you are reading today's post, which was mainly created because I didn't have any pictures of Bryce from today and I needed to keep up my blogging streak. Don't expect this next month....it's too much work, but since I haven't been working, it has been manageable.)

Tomorrow - Friday, February 12 - 2 hr delay

I'm pretty sure I will not know how to handle a full work day when I finally have another one. Snow is in the forecast for Saturday and Monday. I am a lover of snow days, but this is getting to be ridiculous. All I can say is that this snow cycle on the weekends and midweek needs to get it all out of its snowy system by February 27 for Bryce's party. I DO NOT want to have to reschedule his first birthday party!

what....another snow day?!?

After a 2 hr delay yesterday, we are at home for day #6 after yet another winter storm has blown through! The weathermen really messed up this time. I think they led everyone to believe we were just going to get mostly rain out of this last storm. Thankfully my county made the decision to close before 6 am, because some schools closed while they had kids on buses en route to schools. What a mess! Here is a picture from the dining room window. (I am most impressed because I took this picture on the manual setting of the camera! The auto setting tried focusing on the window panes.)

Bryce has decided that he needs to be in control of feeding himself when a utensil is involved. Unfortunately, he is not coordinated enough to do it, and the food falls off because he turns it upside down. However, I think I have avoided the problem by giving him an extra spoon when he is eating. He doesn't have to know he's not really putting any food in his mouth, ha!

Our little baseball player. I remember when I told the girls at work what we were going to name Bryce.....one of the teachers said it sounded like a baseball player, ha! Bryce smiled on command for this picture.

We are working on hitting the ball off the tee.

yet another snow day

I was surprised we didn't have school today because all the roads around us are clear. I realize there are very rural parts of our county that have not been cleared and that got more snow than we did, but I just can't believe I'm on snow day #5. I'm seeing on Facebook that there are still some school parking lots that have not been touched. However, it is only 2:30. I guess more plowing can be done in 3 more hours?!

After taking Bryce to Inflatable Palace a few weeks ago, I knew I wanted to get him some kind of inflatable toy for his birthday that we could fill with balls and recreate the adventure. After hunting online, I found one that I liked (see below), but it was sold out everywhere. Once I did more researching, I realized the product was cheap and not worth the money. So I had the genius idea of just buying the balls and filling Bryce's inflatable pool with them. We need to clean the pool up some, but in the mean time, Bryce is happy playing in the balls on the Florida room floor, ha!

The reviews said that the barn didn't inflate well and it didn't stay up. They also said that they don't hold air because they get holes or pop very easily.

I corralled all the balls into one place on the floor and Bryce was very satisfied.

Oh, to be a kid again!

I didn't have the good camera with me and the sun coming in didn't provide great lighting, but I still think he looks like the cutest baby in the world!

another snowy saturday

I know you are probably tired of seeing pictures of Bryce sitting in piles of tissues or toilet paper and wondering why we let him waste them, but this was the last box of tissues and we baby proofed the bathroom cabinet today so he will not be getting any more toilet paper, ha! Since we are snowed in for the second Saturday in a row, we have found that a happy baby makes for happy parents so what's the harm in a box of tissues, right?!?

Each day Bryce is getting better at standing on his own. For some reason, he tends to bend over in this position before standing up. I personally think it's the cutest thing I have ever seen!

Then he gets into a squatting position.

And he's up! Then we say YAY and he claps because we are excited.

Then he's down.

We actually have church tomorrow so at least we will get out of the house for a bit. And it won't be so bad because the snow has finally stopped falling! The view from our front door makes me think we could possibly go back to school on Monday. However, a lot of other teachers and people who live on the other end of the county are predicting Thursday. With the cold temperatures and the prediction for snow mid-week, we may never go back to school. I like snow and a break from school, but I LOVE summer and a big break from school. Too many more days missed and they will be cutting into my summer vacation.

snow day # 4

*****Updated*****

While Bryce was napping and I was blogging, Jason was building. Jason fought the elements and the weight of balled up snow and created this master piece. We took Bryce out to see the snowman when he woke up from his nap. He was very fascinated by it.

Jason's goal was to make the snowman taller than him. He succeeded!

Snow storm number 3 is upon us and I'm at home for the fourth day this week! We went to school 2 hours late yesterday and then they cancelled school today before it even started snowing. However, when the weather forecast calls for 6-8 inches of snow, what do you do?! At times, I thought we probably would have been alright to go to school today, but I'm not complaining about being home with BOTH my boys today. We started the day off at Krispy Kreme. I saw mini donuts the last time we were there and I couldn't wait until Bryce was big enough to eat real food so we could get him one (or two)!

Bryce did not complain that the mini donuts had to be purchased in twos. How excited does he look about eating a donut?! Keep in mind he has never had one (well at least not that we know of).

First bite

The first bite was so good that he decided to shove the whole thing in his mouth, ha!

He liked it so much that he wanted to get his hands on the second one so we wouldn't take it. I had only planned on him having one, but I was having too much fun watching him enjoy it to say no.

Donut anyone?

His face was a sticky mess when he was done!

go red for women

In honor of the American Heart Association's "go red for women" campaign, Bryce and I wore red today.

This is "us" last year wearing red for the same occasion.

I had forgotten how big I really was. W.O.W.

back to reality

Back to work tomorrow! Bryce and I sure have had fun this week. Bryce even gets to have his daddy home with him on Friday. Poor little guy probably misses Chase and is wondering why he has to keep playing with his mommy and daddy, ha! He got to spend a few hours with Chase today while I went shopping. Snow day # 3 was not as picture filled as the past few days.

Bryce enjoys following me into the bathroom in the morning while I'm getting ready. You would think he could entertain himself with all his book and toys, but nope, he just wants to crawl around in filth in the bathroom. Not that our bathroom is all that dirty, but it IS a bathroom. Here he is getting caught unraveling an ENTIRE roll of toilet paper. Not that I'm encouraging this behavior, but it did keep him occupied while I got ready this morning.

It's like he's saying, "uh, this isn't good"! He was waiting for a reprimand, but he didn't get one. I mean really, look at that cuteness!

I got out and did a little shopping for me today and boy did it feel good! I'm lucky that MeMaw gets the same snow days as I do and she is available for some Bryce time when I need some me time! NY&Co was having a great deal on pants. I got two pair of pants for the price of one. I found one pair of pants I really liked, but I had trouble finding a second. I got really frustrated and almost left with nothing because it would be silly to pay for one pair of pants and just get one pair of pants. I know that sounds silly, but I wanted the deal. I finally found the same pants in a different color. Don't be surprised if you don't get daily updates on the B-man as life gets back to normal and I actually have to work, ha!