Friday's Favorite...and Catching Up

Happy Friday, friends!

A lot has happened since my last blog post. I had my wisdom teeth removed, my mom celebrated a (pretty big milestone) birthday, we decided to send Brady to preschool, and we decided not to send Brady to preschool. Ok, it doesn't really sound like much when I write it out, but it certainly has felt like a lot.

The wisdom tooth removal took more out of me than I thought it would and, quite frankly, more than I care to admit. They had been bothering me for quite awhile and I kept putting it off, but finally gave in and had all four of them (surgically) cut out  removed. It's been two weeks and a day since they came out and I'm still sore and achy and dosing up on Ibuprofen (couldn't take the pain pills). But, thankfully I have a loving, patient, and helpful husband who has put up with me and a mother that came to help watch my very active two year old son.

I have some pictures from my mom's birthday that I will post another time. It was a good day, but what made it cute (in my mind) was Brady's "Happy Birthday, Grandma!" every two seconds. Said with love and enthusiasm each time. Her birthday was last week, but last night at dinner he leaned over to her and said it again. We rolled with it. Why not? It's nice to be celebrated, even on non-birthdays.

I will update you on the preschool thing at another time too (this is how I keep you coming back).

Most of you know by now that Brady is particular about certain things. He likes them lined up, stacked up, and put in a certain order. I love it. It's just one of those things that makes Brady "Brady".

Take, for instance, these horses.

Do you notice how they are eye-to-eye standing directly in front of each other? Well, that is no accident. They are placed, adjusted, and tweaked until they are just right. Then, they are replaced, readjusted, retweaked (is that a word?)...you get the idea.

I got spotted lurking. Ignore the crazy-eyed expression. He was all hyped up on posing horses.

It's not just horses that get the attention.

And it's not just toys.

Everyday is something new with this little guy. Lately, he's been saying he's embarrassed. He puts a shy smile on his face, leans his head to the side, puts his hands by his head, and says in a quiet voice "embarrassed". Here's the pose, in all it's cuteness.

I'm not sure why he was embarrassed. It couldn't possibly be because he is wearing winter jammies in August, could it? Nah, I didn't think so either.

Friday's Favorite

Happy Friday!

Is it just me, or has this day taken forever to get here this week? I think it's felt extra long because we've been cooped up in the house because of the excessive heat. Thankfully, it rained yesterday and we were able to actually play outside for a little while yesterday. Brady was thrilled to be able to do one of his favorite pasttimes: picking flowers (or, as he puts it, "picking towpers").

We had a fun family outing to Lambert's last night to celebrate Brady's B-Pa's birthday. If you've never been, it's certainly quite the experience. They are famous for their "throwed rolls" where they actually throw fresh, hot rolls at you...you must be on constant alert or you may get beaned in the head...just ask my mom. The wait is always insane and they don't take debit (but accept checks-bizarre!) and the food style is downhome cookin'. And they bring you more food than you could ever possibly consume. It looked like Brady had eaten a bowling ball by the time we left.

They bring around pass-a-rounds in addition to your meal, one of which was fried okra, a first for Brady who thought they were tator tots (I'm slightly ashamed to admit he knows what tator tots are). At the end of our meal our waitress brought Brady a balloon-and he was delighted. It was orange, or, in Brady-speak, "oran juh juh". Believe it or not, I snapped a lot of pictures, but they didn't turn out so well due to the lighting. This was the best one and it's still not great...but you gotta love the barbecue sauce on the little guy's face.

After the meal we all headed back to our house for some birthday cake and ice cream. Not that anyone had enough room for cake or ice cream. Brady helped me make a German Chocolate cake and homemade vanilla ice cream earlier in the day and was very proud to share it with everyone. He announced (several times) that he was a "big helper" to mommy. And he was! The little guy is a blast in the kitchen. He was beside himself when I brought out the mixer and right away said "Mommy, up!" at which point he sat on the counter and helped me mix until his heart was content....or, at the very least, until the cake batter was light and fluffy!

Brady thought it was his personal duty to make sure the candle was blown out. Twice. The first time was midway through the Happy Birthday song and the second was promptly after the song ended. Hopefully, for B-Pa's sake, your birthday wish still comes true if someone else blows out your candle! 

The little trooper stayed up an hour past his bed time, and had a great night. We all went to bed with full bellies and happy hearts...loving life and each other.

Movie Night

Before I get started, I just want to acknowledge the fact that I am aware it's been 20 days since my last blog post. A lot has happened that I want to catch you up on (Hello! Brady's two now!), and I will, but for now I just want to jump right in. I'll sprinkle the things you've missed here and there and, before you know it, it'll be like I've blogged everyday for the last 20 days (ha!). Seriously though, I vow to do better about more timely posts...thanks for hanging in there with me!

OK, now on to the "official" posting!

Brady is not a television watcher. He never has been. He knows a lot of TV characters like Mickey, Pooh, Thomas the Train, etc., but he knows them from books...which, I'll admit, I love. Mike and I have read to him since before he was born. Mike used to prop his head near my belly when I was pregnant and would read to Brady all the time. It is one of my favorite memories of being pregnant (and I have a lot of favorite memories from that time!). So, needless to say, we're thrilled he loves books.

All that to say, his latest craze has been the characters from the Disney movie "Cars". He knows them all: Lightning McQueen, Mater, Doc Hudson...the list goes on. And, in true B-Man fashion, he knows them from his books.

Well, the weather here has been unbearably hot and we haven't been able to be outside as much as we like to be. Folks, I'll cut to the chase...the Butler Family has a bad case of cabin fever and we're going a little stir crazy. So, Mike and I thought it would be fun to have our very first family movie night and what better movie to get than "Cars"?

We knew Brady would be excited, but to tell you the truth, I think Mike and I were more excited about seeing him be excited. Ah, the joy of parenting! I love the fact that we get to revel in the joy of Brady's laughter and excitement. I am smiling just thinking of it.

We ran through a drive-thru on our way home to get our favorite chicken nuggets (there goes your thoughts of me being the perfect parent!) and, after a quick stop at the video store, we were home! I covered Brady's chair (his birthday gift from us) with a blanket, propped it up in the middle of the floor with his thermos cup (courtesty of B-Ma) by his side and his chicken nuggets in his lap.

And we pushed play.

It's times like these I wish I had better photography skills. The pictures just don't do it justice. He was pointing, nuggets in hand, at all the characters and saying their names. The kiddo was excited!

In all his excitement he was squirmy and I wasn't able to capture the pictures I had hoped for, but I was happy I snapped these.

Despite all that excitement, he only watched about 30 minutes of the movie...I told ya, he's not a television watcher...but it was totally worth it!

One of my favorite moments was right after the movie came on and Brady said an excited "Thank Yooouuu!" to us. I see many more family movie nights in our future. Who knows? Maybe one day we'll actually be able to watch the whole movie.