10 on Tuesday

Ok, so I'll do my 10 on Tuesday about an hour early here. The kids are both in bed and its so quiet in the house!

1. Something is up with Jaden. I'm not sure exactly what, but he hasn't been sleeping well and is extra whiny lately. He wakes up sitting up in bed with his eyes closed, crying. If I lay him back down, he goes back to sleep, but wakes up about an hour later or more for most of the night. Last night he did this until 3:30am, then was quiet until 7:30am when he got up, still tired and whiny. No nap either. Well, except the 30 minutes on the couch with daddy today... until either he fell off the couch or daddy accidentally pushed him off!

Taylor's new hat!


2. Jaden has been off the binky for awhile now. Yet today, he saw a "red one" under the ottoman and had the biggest smile on his face... until I snatched it from his hands quicker than he could get it in his mouth... DRAMA! I ran to Jason before he could get into the other room and told him to hide it fast! haha. But all was well when Jason gave him his old electric toothbrush to play with!



3. I've been wanting to get pictures in my In-Law's backyard for awhile now. Even though it was windy as heck and freezing outside! (ok 40 but that's close!)... we took Jaden out for a bit on Sunday. The pictures I got are some of my new favorites.

4. I'm a procrastinator. I have only 90 pages left (of 547) in my book... and haven't picked it up in 2 days. I'm so close to moving onto the next book! Does it help that I just finished editing the session from Sunday tonight??



5. Taylor has an attitude. She's a very easy going baby typically, but in the last month, if you take something away from her that she wants/has... it's ON! I should be proud. At least she knows what she wants and is determined to have it!



6. Jaden refused to eat dinner tonight. Nothing was making him happy. So... he ate 2 things of mandrin oranges, and a thing of peaches... and some yogurt. He wanted more water than milk today, too, which is rare for him so he might be getting sick. He's a little congested at night when he sleeps, and snoring a little bit. When he's awake, he's got a little cough, but nothing too bad yet. I hope it doesn't get bad!

And this is one of my new favorites! Sunflare crazy! (yes I did that on purpose)


7. Jaden heard the word "stupendous" today on the cartoon channel. (pre-school channel) and kept repeating it over and over to Taylor. It was so cute!

Jaden and Grandpa playing with leaves, and more sunflare. I love it!


8. It's COLD outside! That's all I have to say about that. Fall is not nearly long enough anymore. It goes from 75 degree days to 40.

9. My in-law's saved me this weekend. Literally. Well, my sanity at least. I mentioned Jaden's behavior above, and it had been going on all week last week. They had Jaden Friday and Saturday night, and Taylor Saturday night as well. My Saturday was GREAT! Not to mention it was a really nice day weather-wise! So- Thank you, Alvin and Shirley!! (and for the other countless times you have had our kids!)



10. The world is so big... but Jaden's world seems to revolve around Grandpa. It's the cutest thing ever. =)

Happy Tuesday, Everyone!

Playing with the speedlight today....

Yes, I always express my HATE for my flash (and I'm talking my speedlight, not the pop-up though I hate that even more)... but I put it on today. It's so gloomy and rainy outside, that there wasn't much natural light to work off of. So basically, here ya go!



The house is a bit chilly, hence the hat.


Kisses!





Hi!





Happy Tuesday!

Our Family Pics

We finally got our family pictures done today! Although the kids weren't too into it, they will have to do until next year! We searched high and low for a tree that's leaves had changed. Pretty trees are scarce yet this year!


















This is my favorite. If only Taylor was looking at the camera, and Jaden wasn't crying... but it's us, no doubt!


Happy Monday, Everyone!

Friday Fun!

I got bored today

So I got bored today and took some pictures in the mirror.
Thought I'd share!

10 on Wednesday

So I'm a day late for 10 on Tuesday so we'll do 10 on Wednesday!

1. Taylor still won't sit up on her own. She's 8 months old now, and CAN sit up, she just intentionally pushes herself backward unless a (boppy) pillow is around her. Stinker.

2. Jaden loves Bob now. His squeaky fish. We named him Bob. He used to be soo scared of that thing and would run the other way when he saw it. Now, it's all about Bob.



3. Jaden apparently likes to crawl into Taylor's swing when I'm not looking. Beside the fact that it might break the darn thing, I sure thought it was funny when I caught him in there!

4. Jaden is getting a "little" better at having his picture taken. I'm really hoping to get a couple good ones before the Holiday's, but we'll see. I did get a couple last week, so I'll be ok with that if I don't get anything better.



5. Our basement makes me sad. Jason painted it this summer, we cleared some stuff out, mainly my backdrops and props, and now it just sits there, looking sad, covered with toys and junk we don't use. We REALLY need to finish that up this fall before winter hits. This requires getting another cable outlet hooked up on that side of the basement for the TV, moving the TV and couch, finding a decent rug since the carpet down there is terrible, and getting a second DVR box. All of this really won't be that hard to do, but we must be lazy!

6. I'm still addicted to the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I've finsihed the first 3 books. Just have Breaking Dawn (the last book) to read. I had checked out so many books from the library in the process of reading Twilight, that I had to take a break before Breaking Dawn to get those read first! I'm about halfway through the second book of the Queen of Babble series by Meg Cabot. It's pretty good, but also pointless. Jason calls me a dork. =)



7. We were suppose to get our family pictures taken on Monday evening, but it was raining the first part of the day, and although it stopped by late afternoon, Jason thought it'd be too cold and muddy so we are going to give it another try this Sunday. I hope to be posting some of those next week!

8. I've added a bunch of Holiday card designs to www.nicolebrackphotography.photoreflect.com so if you know of anyone interested in some cards, send them my way!



9. Jaden and Taylor are still pretty fond of each other. I got lucky that Jaden never really got jealous of her. He did act out that first week or two after she was born, but after that, he's been great about it and just loves her to death. She thinks her big brother is pretty darn cool!

10. Some days, Taylor has been fighting her naps. She gets tired and cranky, but just won't give in. I'm hoping this is a fluke and not a new phase for her! At the moment, BOTH kids are napping and they both went down about the same time... yay!! Usually they only overlap by an hour or less with their naps. Off to get some things done!


Cuddles on the couch after Daddy got home from work.

2 year olds...

One word- MASCARA.









After the clean-up:





This cracks me up!





She thinks her brother is pretty funny!

It's Fall!

So I decided to take the kids outside this evening in hopes of some pictures of them together- NOPE! Jaden wasn't having that at all. I should've know. Next time, I will wait to bring Tay outside for a good 45 minutes after he's been playing outside. I got them dressed to at least not clash with each other, and that never mattered anyway. So- here are most of the shots from the evening!

She's starting to look more like a big girl these days to me, which makes me happy AND sad at the same time! Yes, Daddy is holding her hand, as she still intentionally pushes herself backward when sitting on occasion! I don't think I've let her fall often enough for her to figure out that it hurts!


Smiling at Daddy





Smiles from Jaden!


Mommy's new Favorite! Finally a framer!


So serious!


This was the best I got because he only sat down for about 10 seconds!


I just love her pouty little lips and her big cheeks!


...and another new favorite!


Still cute


WAY different than I usually share, but I loved this image- just not the quality I got from it being so dark in the house, and we just won't go there on WHY it was so bad. SO I did this with it. I loved how Tay was smiling up at him. She loves her big brother more than she loves me!


They're just so darn sweet together.


And of course I have to share this story, though you'd had to have been there to truly appreciate it. So this morning, I was more tired than usual when Jaden woke up in a whine. I turned on the cartoons in my bedroom and let him lay with me for a bit. Of course, a 2 year old won't stay put for long, so he was off before I knew it. I was half-awake, listening to see what he was doing here and there. Then, he comes into the bedroom and tells me that Tay is up. I heard her talking to herself, and she happened to be in the swing since she had gotten up to eat around 6am and went back to sleep. Well, Jaden goes in there and is playing with her. So all of a sudden, I hear them both CRACKING UP at each other. For a good 10 minutes... non-stop laughter from both of them at the same time. I wanted to get something (though I'd probably just have had to leave a message on someone's machine since my video camera is broke) to record them, but I was too lazy to get up and my phone wasn't by me.

Anyway- these two are going to have so much fun together... for a couple of years. After that, I can see that Tay will probably be stealing Jaden's toys and bugging him to the extreme. Until then, I'm going to enjoy how darn cute they are together!

Happy Friday, everyone!