New Postings

I am doing quite a few new postings to catch up on some fun things that have been happening.

Don't miss some of them that I stashed back to their proper date:

First Sledding

Hawaii - Four Winds (new) 

Putting Away Christmas

Basketball 

Early January Happenings (new) 

Macklin's Skiing - Take 2 (new) 

BC Snowshoe Race - Jan (new) 

Macy 9 Month  (new)

More videos to come in the next few days as well as our new room set up! 

Macklin's ABCs

I have started to go through all of the letters in the alphabet with Macklin, one each day when we can. I think we started two weeks ago and we are only on E if that tells you how quickly we are moving. I wanted to brag about his progress in his letter writing! He has got the A down the best, "up down cross" he calls it. B is tough. C looks like a G. D is alright. There are two As and two Ds up there in case you were wondering.

We do this right after Macy goes down for her morning nap so that it is just me and Macklin. The first few days he was really excited, but sometimes he is totally not interested at all....then we wrestle instead. We do the letter itself written out, its sound with the LeapFrog song, draw pics of words with that letter, and then make a flash card of it to hang on the wall. (No making fun of my elephant...Macklin wanted it to be happy.) He can recognize some of the letters better than before, but it is for sure not happening as fast as I was thinking it would!

On another note, he learned how to hold up two fingers using his index and middle finger....good thing he is almost 3 :) It is so cute, he looks so surprised every time he holds it up, like "oh my gosh, it is there!" 

First Sledding of 2013

Last week I took the kids sledding over at 2nd Street Park. It was short lived but fun for the moment! Macklin took one run on his own. Then a second taking Macy for her first sled ride ever. I totally pushed them down the hill, Macy safely in the arms of her two-year-old big brother. Then, he was done and wanted to play at the playground! Such a funny little guy he is. Macy was all bundled and could hardly sit up, but it was about 15 degrees out...totally warm enough to go outside compared to the -5 that we are starting our days at lately. 

 

Hawaii - Four Winds

Before we went to Hawaii, we checked out books that were about the beach and Hawaii. One was Froggy Goes to Hawaii. It is a cute little book and Froggy gets to go to the beach, surf, snorkel, go to a luau, and play with his family - literally everything we did while we were there! 

Well, Macklin has been saying, "I want to go back to Hawaii" lately since I have fun up a few Hawaii pics. He also asked for this book again while we were at the library last week. As we were reading through it again and I was thinking about our awesome trip, we came across this page....

We did our snorkel trip on the FOUR WINDS boat! 

Can you believe it?  

The Spragues and Froggy were in the same place! Crazy that! 

Putting Away Christmas

Only 2.5 weeks after coming back home, we have Christmas put away! We were so blessed from our friends and families that we had to do a little cleaning to make room for things! You can tell from the above pictures that we brought a lot of things back (and no, we didn't get a lot of eggs for Christmas, just good boxes)! On the way there, Baxter totally had a spacious back of truck, promise! 

It was hard to put things away because every time that I tried to sort, de-clutter, and put away, Macklin would always want to play with it all! 

 

New bath paint! 

The BeardHead hat that Uncle Kevin got for Macklin fits Macy pretty good! 

New BabyLegs 

Macy's New House 

Macy's New Wardrobe! Lots of animal prints! 

Check out the new play room! We are changing the "guest room" into more of a play room. I have really enjoyed the new status of this room. It is now bed free (soon to be changing again though). There is so much floor space to play in now and all of the toys have a home! I was so excited to get this done! 

I ended my Christmas organizing with a high five from my sweet husband. 

Gypsum ends their Christmas celebration by burning everyone's trees in a HUGE bonfire! This picture was from just behind the Stop N Save. It was a fun 12th Night festivity that we have been missing out on the past 5 years in Gypsum. Macklin thought it was cool to watch the firemen work! 

Basketball this Winter

We have enjoyed our fair share of basketball this winter, just the way Justin prefers it! 

EVHS - C Team

Justin is the C-Team coach this year (a change from his status as a volunteer varsity assistant from last season). His team is definitely getting better, but that isn't always helping them win games :( He does have some great boys on the team though (including one of my xc runners!). We have been able to go to most of the games. Macklin is more and more interested in the actual game and watching the boys. If we go late (arrive some time in the 2nd quarter), we can normally watch the rest of the game in the gym! Huge improvement over what he would let me do last season. Also, it is fun for me to start to get to know the parents of Justin's players as well. 

 

Justin's Rec League Team 

Justin plays with the guys from Eagle Bible Church in a rec league on Tuesday nights (when he doesn't have games himself). He got to play last night and they won on a last second shot by our buddy Heath! It was a fun game to watch (as Macklin played with the other kiddos) and so awesome that his team his the game winner at the buzzer! Sine I was one of the only fans there, I was super pumped and wanted to jump up and down! Everyone else was stunned or not paying attention. Most of the guys are the same as last year, except they picked up our friend Caleb who is new to EBC. He is young and quick and adds good energy to the team! 

Macklin's Future Career

Mack, Macy and I went to play at the EVHS gym on Sunday when Justin went back to school to work for a bit. Since it has been so cold outside, we just decided to play inside a place with more room to run. We made up games with trash cans and balls. We "shot" baskets (of course they are way too tall for Mack). Next time I think I will bring Macklin's hoop (or maybe just look for one at the Thrifty Shop). Macy just crawled around and chased the HexBug everywhere. For the record, I made 7/10 free throws....that didn't even happen in high school! 

He is looking older and older! 

Early January Happenings

What has been happening around the Brandts in the last few weeks?

Everyone has turned into a superhero with a cape....Baxter, mommy, Macy, and Froggy included! Macklin loves to pretend play! He is so funny around it! Most things revolve around stories or movies that he has watched, but then he adds in his own elements as well. His favorites these days are superheroes, hunting lions and tigers and such, being the diver that catches Nemo, camping under the sheets and roasting marshmallows, and hiding in an igloo. It is pretty darn cute. 

It has been super cold over the past few weeks. -13 is the coldest I have ever personally witnessed, so I had to take a picture! What do you do when it is this cold? You go to Tumble Tots at the Rec Center (thank you great grandpa Sprague for the Christmas money for the kids that we can use to do this!).

  

And then one day it hit 20...so of course we went outside to the park...it was a warm day! 

I got to hit the slopes with my dear friend Kari. I just think the world of this chica and any time I get to hang with her I feel blessed by it!

She took me on the Minturn Mile for the first time ever. It is a 2.5 mile journey that takes you from the top of Vail (left pic) to the town of Minturn (where Kari lives). It is like a luge track on the lower parts, but the upper parts had some great deep powder sections (on the right).

Macy is standing a lot! She is gaining strength in her legs and getting ready to stand on her own. I was excited in late December when she was pulling up on things. Now she is standing and transferring from one object to another! 

 

 

College gear time. When there are Mizzou basketball games, I try to dec out the kids in their gear! Also, I had this cute IWU onesie, so I had to take of picture of Macy in her future alma mater attire.

 

When it's cold outside, time for cookie baking inside! Macklin is such a great little kitchen helper when he is feeling up for it. He is learning how to level off the measuring cups and get everything in the bowl! He likes to break the eggs too.

Story Time. Macklin has really taken a new interest in story time. He sits and listens to Ms. Janet read all of the boys. Sometimes he snuggles with me but mostly he just listens eagerly. From 12-24 months, we went on a story time break because he was not interested at all. It is a fun routine for Wednesday mornings at 10am and they even get to do a craft. It is nice to get new books each week too so I don't have to keep reading the same ones at home :)

I got to see Kendra this week. We have been missing each other a lot lately. Her daughter is doing great and growing strong. Remember Kendra from her shower that I helped host? 

Macklin's Skiing - Take 2

We took Macklin up for his second day of skiing, this time Justin and Macy got to come along. It was very short again, but fun! It is totally normal to where a huge coat and put your baby inside of it. Two heads! 

 

Macklin did two more runs than last time, for a total of four runs on the magic carpet. He spied a boy playing on a snow mound when we walked down from the gondola and I think that was on his mind the whole time! He was pretty pumped to play on the snow after skiing...more excited about the mound than skiing itself. We will try a few more times. 

We all went up together to BC. After Macklin finished skiing, Justin took out to get some mountain time in himself. I took both kids and gear down the mountain, on the bus, and back to our car. I felt like a super mommy but looked like a pack mule! 

Love these two!