Brandon turns 4!!!!

There are renovations going on at our park and the boys, especially Mason, love to watch the tractors work!

Happy 4th Birthday Brandon!

 This year I thought it would be fun to spend Brandon's entire birthday day doing things we love....like starting our day at the park

..followed by lunch at his favorite sandwich shop, Jimmy Johns....

...and finally we finished our celebrating by have our favorite dinner, tacos, followed by cupcakes and presents!  I can't believe my Mr B is now four!

Ummm, cupcakes!

The sign of a great tasting cupcake! 

Brandon's 4th birthday party

Mason's 1st time on a carousel, he did not want to get off!

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Does it get any cuter???

Happy 4th birthday Brandon!

Andrea and Brandon, one of his favorite girls

enjoying our new tinker toys

This year I was not overly thrilled at the idea of hosting Brandon's party at the house so instead we celebrated at Peter Piper Pizza.  We had a blast with family and friends.  The pizza was surprisingly good, the kids (and adults) had fun playing games, and most importantly Brandon had fun.
This years theme was Wall-E, since lately robot-type movies have been his favorite!  We made our own invitations and thank you notes, and I was able to get the perfect Wall-E cupcake cake from Fry's (once again, Fry's did great and not overly expensive).
Andrea was wonderful and helped Brandon open all his gifts.  He received soooooo many nice gifts from everyone....Thank you all so much.  He was so excited when we arrived home that he and Kevin opened up and played with just about all of them.  His favorite gift to start is the tinker toys....he just loves to create using his imagination!

Daddy's little helpers

Serious faces

Silly faces

The boys still love to help me cook but are super eager to be Daddy's little helpers.  Kevin is usually our weekend breakfast chef, and the boys are always willing to help stir, pour, or taste-test.  This is a nice tradition and one that Kevin tells me started with his Dad when he was a younger boy.  Now, how to convince the kids to wake up Kevin (and let me continue sleeping) so I might some day have breakfast in bed....yeah, I know, likely not to happen!

Winter play

 This year has started out very cold, for dessert standards!  Despite the highs being in the 40's, the boys still insisted on playing outside.  So we bundle up and head out to play with Mason's favorite outside toy, the  Raptor! 
He is so good at steering and maneuvering around objects in the yard, but he often gets stuck in the soft sand by the back fence.  It's cute, when he can't figure out why he's not moving, he just leans over the side to look at the tires and slams the gas pedal down (don't worry, we have the speed locked at 2.5 MPH)!
Brandon still enjoys being the passenger, he really doesn't seem inclined to drive.  It seems weird to me but then again he does have much interest in riding a bike either.  Hopefully that will change this spring, when we can spend more time outside!  

Froggy potty success

Mason pooped on the potty today (picture Mommy clapping her hands and dancing around like a fool)!!!!  He was so happy with himself and rightfully demanded his candy!  Yes, we learned the hard way with Brandon that the rewards need to be small, practical, and motivating.  It's pretty cute, every night before bath, he does his business on the big boy potty and then, exclaims "I get candy", with a big grin on his face.  I think we are just months away from full blown potty training....
As a side note, Brandon finally gave in to using the big boy potty for all his business about six months ago, thankfully. 

Brotherly love....

I hope these two little guys will always be the best of friends... 

New Year!!!!

Happy New Year, 2013 promises to be a great year.  Wishing everybody a great year! By the way, thank you Grandma (Anne) for the great hand-me-down blanket!!!!