Bradley in a Big Boy Bed!

Bradley is officially in a big boy bed now. He loves it and it's the transition has been an overall success I'd say, despite him somehow managing to get himself wedged between the bed rail and the mattress at 5 AM his first night in the bed. Luckily, Bradley is Bradley, and despite crying a lot when he got himself trapped in the rail he still really likes the bed and has already settled in to the new routine.

Here Bradley is helping Daddy disassemble the crib. Such a helper!

Another Bradley advancement in the past couple weeks has been climbing ladders at the park. One day he wasn't, the next day a punk 5 year old ran up one of the ladders ahead of him and Bradley HAD to follow. He has fallen off a ladder once or twice (in slow motion from a middle run) but it has not deterred him in the least from getting back up and trying again.

He also continues to have a thing for dogs with leashes. People are way too nice here and keep letting him do this.

He talks a lot more now too, which is fun. Today we were walking down the stairs to go out to the car and I was carrying both children (I have some pretty legitimate muscles these days, let me tell you) and Bradley noticed Eleanor's hair bow and started poking at it and said "bow on head". I said "yes, Eleanor is wearing a pretty bow on her head." So he repeated "pretty bow on the baby head". I perked up upon hearing him say "pretty" and asked him if he could say pretty mommy. He could! I love having a child who talks.

This. I love this. He enjoys eating ice cream on the front step from time to time.

Although conversation can be fairly focused on one particular subject. I don't know why I was trying to talk about anything besides apple juice and bubbles in this video.

Well, sometimes I enjoy the talking. After church this past Sunday Nathan and I were asking Bradley about his Sunday school class. We asked him if he got to draw, if he got snack, if he had friends. Talking Bradley has been so much fun, we love it when he tells us stories. He brightened up when we asked if he had a lot of friends at church and smiled, nodded ... and enthusiastically said "hit!" Nathan has a much better poker face than I do, I had a lot of trouble stopping laughing. I'm not asking any questions about Bradley's friends from now on.

Although he is pretty cute with his little friends whenever I'm around. A little while after this picture was taken he pulled his friend Worth (the boy in the back) in the wagon through the grass by himself. Bradley is strong.

I mean, he is seriously strong. Look at these arms! 

Welcome to the gun show

 This photo and the following are from our friend Olivia's birthday party. We had a blast!

Good news, Bradley doesn't mind girly pink frosting in the slightest. Is it bad that I'm hoping to teach him that pink is just for girls? Maybe purple too. I can give Eleanor only pink and purple toys and avoid a lot of fights.

No luck so far, especially after Bradley's encounter with pink frosting. Pink is the best!

And thank you so much to Grandpa Dan and Grandma Kati for sending Bradley his new, awesome remote control car! He is quite the fan. Forty seconds in he says thank you and it is quite sweet.

 We are so crazy for our little Eleanor, especially as more and more of her personality comes through.

I think this photo, albeit a bit blurry, perfectly captures our little Eleanor

So smiley!

So sleepy

I briefly considered getting Eleanor a $2 birthday tiara in prep for her party next month. She said no thanks.

The crown sits heavy upon Eleanor's head

We're not sure if Eleanor has said a real word yet but she definitely says something along the lines of "dadado" when she sees Nathan and I swore the other day that she said "cat!" while she was pointing at Meg but then she said the same thing when she pointed at the pictures on the fridge so perhaps I'm giving her too much credit.

Cute in the bath

Wootwoo, someone is a cute little bee out of the bath!

She lives for the stairs these days. If left unobserved for more than two minutes she will find her way to the stairs, crawl up, and head into the bathroom to play with the bath toys. She's cute but she's naughty! She loves walking up and down the stairs with assistance. Walking down the stairs while holding onto both of her hands is as scary as it sounds. But she loves it and I'm a sucker for her smiles and her laugh. She cackles when I chase her up the stairs and she howls with glee when I catch her. What a little doll.

She seems to have a much better sense of self preservation than our Bradley boy and it has taken her two full weeks from her first independent step to try anything beyond one quick step from one thing to another. Today she took six steps in a row! A new record! She's actually walking quite a bit these days, it's so fun to watch.

It's a bit surreal to have her walking and I absolutely cannot believe that in just a month she'll be a year old.

Our little Pebbles will be so old!

She is all up in Bradley's business these days.

Tee hee hee, I can play with the phone toy while he's watching his show!

And sometimes Bradley is in Eleanor's business

Eleanor was DONE giving Bradley rides on her walker toy. DONE she tells you.

And much of the time they're just in Mommy's business. This picture pretty accurately describes my life these days.

And this describes Daddy's life when things are going right on the weekend.

One of Nathan's favorite things is to cuddle up with Bradley for one of his shows. Turns out the way to make it even better is to add popcorn to the mix.

These are the popcorn bowls that I grew up using at my granddad's house. It's so sweet and a little surreal to have Bradley using them now.

My boys just like to cuddle.

And I like to pull out my old freebie Harry Potter glasses from ten years ago and put them on my son. The results are rather eerie! Genetics for the win.

This kid is so stinkin cute

Nathan and I are so happy that things are finally kind of settling down. Here we are celebrating our third wedding anniversary a few weeks back.

That said, Nathan found out that he has to go in for hip surgery in a couple weeks and will be on crutches for a month afterward. He also found out that he has been retired from all sports besides tennis and golf, because I am DONE with my crazy husband playing sports while he is injured and causing himself to require surgery. Back surgery and hip surgery by 33, no thank you. Luckily we have some family visiting but feel free to send us your prayers. Nathan has a lot of stairs to climb at least twice a day, it's going to be tricky to say the least!