It's Been Awhile.....

A very long time actually, since I've blogged. I just noticed I haven't blogged since November 2011. What happened you ask? Life of course; the sudden illness and loss of my grandmother, Baylor's diagnosis of Apraxia, intense speech therapy multiple times a week and the birth of our second child, a girl, Ella Grace.
I kept telling myself, "you really need to sit down and blog" and then something would come up. The days got away from me and before I knew it, it was May 2013. I wish I had time like others to sit down and post every night but my life doesn't always allow that. I'm not dis'ing on other people that take the time by any means. I am a stay at home mom but I seem to stay busier now that I do not work then when I did work 30 hours a week. How does that happen really? Maybe I don't manage my time appropriately. I get wrapped up in so many different things at one time that it's hard for me to keep up at times. I guess everything else became priority and blogging took a backseat. I do miss it though. I guess it's a good place for me to place my thoughts and memories for us to look back on one day. It also seems to be a good stress relief as well. Sometimes I guess I need to make time, especially if I consider blogging stress relief:)
I hope to catch up on this blog over the next few months. You may see back dated posts that happened awhile back but my goal is to back track in hopes of one day turning this blog into a book for our family.
So here I go again....

Trunk or Treat 2011

We had a lot going on the week of Halloween. Baylor's Mimi decided to take him off my hands for alittle while and they ended up Trunk or Treating at a church in Mobile. I love these pictures of my little cowboy "Woody". I'm so thankful my mother in law is such a great photographer!

Happy Halloween!

Mrs. Heather's Pumpkin Patch 2011

We've started a tradition of visiting a pumpkin patch each October since Baylor has been born. This year we changed from our local pumpkin patch to Mrs. Heather's Pumpkin Patch.

Scott had to work this year so Baylor and I packed up and went our good friends (and neighbors) Mrs. Lisa and Emma.

The kids had a blast running around. There was so much for them to do! They started out looking over the pumpkins:

Then they moved on to climbing fences, playing games and much more. I got some great pictures:

Then we found the hay maze which was Baylor's favorite part! He just ran and ran and ran!

Then we found the gigantic teepee's....

Then we went through the petting zoo which I didn't think Baylor would care anything about but he did...

He absolutely loved the baby pig!

Then at the very end, the kid's got to pick out a pumpkin each to take home with them:



Baylor had a hard time deciding which one he wanted. Or maybe he just wanted to play ball with them. He would pick one up, hold it for a second, then throw it before moving on to another one.

Every year, Baylor and i get a picture together at the Pumpkin Patch. This year wasn't as easy as the last few seeing he is running everywhere and being a typical boy. We still managed to get one though:

Mrs. Heather's Pumpkin Patch was so much fun! You can't beat it for $7 of unlimited time and fun. There was so much to do and when it's all over, the kid's get to take home their very own pumpkin. We will definitely head back there next year.

Happy Fall Everyone!

-Alisha

Baylor's 1st Day Of (Pre)Preschool

Baylor Scott Brady August 31st, 2011. 32 months & 3 weeks old.


My big boy started his new school today:

He will be going on Wednesday's and Thursday's from 8:30A.M.to 3P.M. I was so excited for him to start because I knew the structured environment and social interaction with the other kids would help Baylor progress with his learning and speech. I knew when I went to tour the education center, that this was the place Baylor needed to be. It's not daycare but he's not in actual preschool yet. They do follow a curriculum and he will be learning alot of the same things the preschool children are learning. Every month, they focus on certain letters, colors and numbers and incorporate it into their daily activities in the classroom.

One of the great things about this school is that it's only minutes from my work.

They also have carpool in the morning which makes it much easier to drop him off. His teacher actually gets him out of the car and walks him to the classroom where the student teacher is waiting.



They get play time out on the playground 3x's a day. There is a slide, jungle gym and Baylor's favorite, a HUGE tree house:



So we had our first drop off this morning. I was a little nervous and didn't know what to expect out of Baylor. When they came to get him out of the car, he didn't even blink an eye. He took one of the teacher's hands and never looked back. Mommy was more of a wreck than he was!


The teacher's do a great job of keeping them busy and learning all day. This is what a typical day is like:

• 8:30 Carpool Drop-off
• 8:50-9:10 Playground time
• 9:15-9:25 Room play and handwashing time
  
• 9:25-9:40 Morning snack time
• 9:40-10:00 Bathroom and Diaper changes
• 10-10:30 Centers/Art/Circle/Storytime
• 10:30-11:00 Skating (Wed) Music time (Thurs)
• 11:00-11:25 Playground time
• 11:25-11:35 Handwashing
• 11:35-12:00 Lunch
• 12:00-12:10 Bathroom and Diaper changes
• 12:10-2:00 Naptime
• 2:00-2:10 Bathroom & Handwashing
• 2:10-2:30 Afternoon snack time
• 2:30-3:00 Playground time
  

Baylor will learn a lot of discipline (I hope) in this new structured environment. I feel him watching the other kids will make him want to participate and copy what they do. At naptime, they all lay on their assigned mats with a blankie they bring from home. They sleep on their same mat, in the same spot, next to the same friend, everyday. I will pick Baylor up in the afternoons off of the playground where his teacher will be with him and his class friends. I am really looking forward to January when I can go and watch him skate on Wednesdays if I like. They have themed days too during the year, one of them being "Western Day". I am really looking forward to dressing Baylor up for this. They have a Fall Festival for Halloween, a Christmas Party, a Valentines Day Party and a Mardi Gras parade during the school year. The best part is that even if Baylor doesn't regularly attend on those days, we can still go and participate. In the spring, they will have their annual art show where we can go see all of Baylor's art work from the year that they even mat for us and he will bring home at the end of the year.

Ms. Giselle had lists for the parent's to sign up for special events and snack days. Of course I jumped on this. I love doing that kind of stuff and I've always wanted to be that kind of Mom; very involved in my child's education and just his life in general. I want to help with festivals, go on field trips and even be a "Room Mom"... so that's what I did! I signed up to be a room Mom with another Mommy in the class-Kristin. I'm so excited. I guess Baylor's going to school is a great opportunity for me to make new friends too, like Kristin.

This is a picture of the board in Baylor's classroom. This is the focus during circle time. They start at the bottom and talk about the weather. Then they move up to the letter for the day, the color and the day of the week. During this whole time, she is interacting with them and the kids are answering questions. They also have a new nursery rhyme and song each week they say together.
(You can see Baylor's teacher Ms. Giselle on the far left)


I went to pick up Baylor from his first day of school. Due to the marsh fire in New Orleans sending smoke up to Baton Rouge, the kids had to play in the gym during the afternoon session. I found Baylor running, jumping and playing with new friends.


I spoke to Ms. Giselle and she said Baylor had a wonderful day. He ate his lunch with no assistance, didn't get up during nap time, slept the entire time (and even had to be woken up), played well with the other children and was not disruptive during circle time. He even showed me the sun he painted on his first day.

I am so happy he had such a great 1st day and I am really looking forward to the rest of the year at Broadmoor Presbyterian!

Mason Anthony Allenbach Christening

I have mentioned our friends Ryan and Stephanie Allenbach in many of my posts. They are great friends to us and they are also Baylor's Godparent's. Ryan and Stephanie have a daughter Emma (3) and a son Mason (6 months). They have asked Scott and I to be Mason's Godparent's and we couldn't have been more thrilled! This little boy is a cutie patootie!

He has a mowhawk of curls! I love it!

So we traveled home for the weekend for Mason's Baptism at Corpus Christi Catholic Church.

Ryan and Stephanie are great people. We are so fortunate to have them in our lives. Ryan and Scott go way back to junior high. Stephanie came along about 6 months before Scott and I got married and I'm so glad she did. We always have a great time together.

Their children are precious and I could eat them both up!

It's funny to think that just 2 years ago, we were all together doing the same thing, but the roles reversed. Baylor was Christened in August of 2009, with Ryan and Stephanie being his Godparent's.

I'm so glad we can share in each other's lives together. Not only that, our children will grow up together to become great friends, just like their parents!

Diary of a Potty Training Mom: Day ? Unknown...

We give up, as you probably have already noticed from the lack of posts. Baylor is apparently not ready and I am not going to push him overboard. Fortunately his preschool has informed me that they will begin potty training October 1st. Hopefully he will see the other kids going to the potty and take an interest in it himself. We will pick it back up then. Stay tuned...

Diary of a Potty Training Mom: Day 7

Today we started a new method. Well, a new method that I tweaked alittle bit to fit our needs. It's the "Potty Train Your Child in 3 Days"

method and it sounded like a great way to get Baylor going with the big boy toilet. For this method, you are to spend every second with your child for 3 days. You are to do all your shopping, errands, etc. before hand so you can stay at home and focus on pottying. Yea right. I'm a busy Mom okay? Not that I don't care, that's not it at all but this is reality and things come up. You are to throw away all of your diapers and let them wear just big boy underwear all day. That's one thing I tweaked because I was not about to throw away diapers.

1. They are way to expensive and

2. You can see the time I've had so far with the potty training and I kept them as a safety net.

I started off Baylor in big boy underwear this morning. I took him to the bathroom and explained that if he had to go potty, he needed to let Mommy know. I told him he had to keep his underwear dry.

He did well by staying dry for several hours but did not go to the potty. At nap time, I put him in a pull up and of course that's when he pottied. We decided to go to dinner so instead of putting him in "big boy underwear", I put him in a pull up to be on the safe side.

Much to my surprise, when I got him home, he was dry. So I put his big boy undies on him:

Aren't they the cutest undies? It's so funny watching him run around in these.

He looks just like a big boy.

He hung out with Daddy for awhile watching t.v.:

He was still dry so I decided to take him to the potty instead of us having the accident that I knew was coming if I didn't:

but we didn't have any success. In fact, this is Baylor running like crazy from the potty, or from me... or maybe running from both:

Watch out, naked baby coming through.

Then of course, when I wasn't looking, it happened.

He tinkled in his big boy underwear, right on the carpet in front of my closet door.
Great.
This is wear I have to tell him "Ewww, your big boy underwear are wet" and reminded him that he needs to tell Mommy when he has to go tinkle. Using this method, you are never to tell your child "No, No" or "that's a bad boy". No negative comments. So, I didn't say that.

I just took him back to the potty and tried again.

Of course he was "empty" and there was nothing else.

There's always tomorrow!

End of Day 7 Results:

Potty 0, Baylor 7