...these are the days of our lives

Happy New Year

2011-02-19T19:19:00.000-08:00

A little late...but happy new year none the less. We rang in the new year with my teaching friends. These pics were taken after we got home and remembered we had these cool glasses!

A little bit of this and a little bit of that

2011-02-19T19:09:00.000-08:00

We were in San Antonio last weekend celebrating Curt's grandmother's 95th birthday! What an amazing woman! If people would let her, she would still be driving and gardening and grocery shopping and probably still working at the rec center. We love you GiGi! Here's to more birthday celebrations to come!

First Swim Lessons

2010-07-12T13:52:00.001-07:00

Brady had his first swim lesson today at the YMCA. Every time we have had him in an organized sport I am always so proud at how well he listens to the coach and does what he is told when he is told. He is gracious and kind and so full of joy! He was by no means the most skilled swimmer, but he sure did great at the things I think are most important. Now, am I gullible enough not to believe that we someday might have a child who won’t sit still and listen and is cranky and rude..not at all! But for now, I am very very thankful that for some reason God chose to bless us with such an amazing kid!

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A summer full of camps, friends and family!!

2010-07-12T06:51:00.001-07:00

We have had a great summer so far. I got to go back to camp for all twice this summer right at the beginning of the summer. I did MDA camp with Curt (thus the dorky baseball picture of us!) and then I got to do Camp Star Trails with a girl who was in my class this last year. It was her first year so I told her I would go if she would. We had an amazing time and of course, camp brought out in her a child I had not seen all year!

Here are a few pics from MDA camp. This was Curts 21st year to volunteer with them! I love that about him! Such a big heart for these kids and this organization…and he gets to dress up like a hula girl! Where else could he do this because we sure can’t afford Hawaii!

This was a student in one of my classes this year as well! It was his second year at camp. I didn’t get to see him much, but it was special to be there with him too.

My sister in law brought up Brady and his cousins one day! He loves camp already! Here he is greeting the campers as they come to lunch. Curt does this each meal and Brady LOVES to do it with him! He gets so excited. Yes, he is standing next to a super hero…aka Dr Seth!

And here is my AMAZING cabin of girls! They were awesome and I can’t wait to see them next year! Go cabin 16

Here is a picture of my student and I going off of the zipline together. She refused to go earlier in the week, but I got her up there at the end of the week and she loved it! Keep in mind, this girl used a walker all year long in my class! I love Camp For All!

Then there was Father’s Day! These boys are my heart. I love them so much!

Fourth of July is always great in Pearland because my family comes in for Brady’s birthday and then we go watch an awesome fireworks show at the Rig (Pearland High School Football Stadium)

All in all…so far so good for the summer. I’ve started my online Grad School, we got a new computer (which is why I will now blog more because it is so much easier! I’ve traveled with my best friend Angela and I’m in the best shape ever…now if I could just get pregnant things would be even better!

Popeye the Sailorman

2009-10-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

Curt's Aunt Trish made Brady's costume again this year. Here he is singing the Popeye theme song. Thanks Gat! You did great once again!

Afraid no more...

2009-09-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

I am bummed that I have no pics to accompany this story, but it had to be shared. So, last weekend Curt, Brady and I went to the Be a Star Party for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Of course there were many clowns there and Brady is extremely afraid of anything dressed up crazy...like clowns! So we see 2 in the parking lot and he starts asking lots of questions and wants to be carried. We walk into the hotel and there are 2 more in the lobby. He has a death grip on my neck and will not take his eyes off of them. We get to the room we will be in and there are about 4 more outside the room. Again, death grip, many questions and I'm telling Curt this will be a long night! We walk in the room...no lie...a total of about 10-12 clowns. Brady had entered his version of Hell! He will not let me put him down. He crawls up me when one walks by. They of course approach him and he freaks out, I tell them he's afraid..they wave and walk away. One comes by later and asks if he would like a sword made out of a balloon. He says no and I say, sure make him one. He says no no and I tell him it's for my students so he then says, "No, I want it for me." This was our turning point. The clown brings him the balloon and we (Brady and I) go to the dance floor. He's jumping around having fun...still watching the clowns. He decides he wants a hat made of balloons so I walk him over to the clowns to ask for one. By the end of the night (about 2 hours later) he is on the dance floor in a circle doing the hokey pokey between 2 clowns. Saying come on clowns! Doing the Chicken dance with them, playing soccer with them and when it is time to go..he had to go to each one and tell them bye and give them a hug.

So, in the span of 2 hours we went from body shaking fear of clowns to being best friends with them. Isn't life funny! So, now we are going to work on my friend Angela. She's in her 30's and still wouldn't do the hokey pokey with a clown!

The Wiggles, great seats and a very happy little boy!

2009-08-09T18:28:00.001-07:00

Brady and I after the Wiggles concert...

Curt and I got to take Brady to The Wiggles concert today. It was so much fun to see him so happy. He danced and sang and laughed. There really is no greater joy than to see your kids so stinkin happy. We had great seats too. We aren't used to those kind of seats, but I'm so glad we did.

One of the songs said something about being like a snake so the kids procedded to copy the Wiggles and crawl on the floor.

One of my favorite pics. Brady was copying everything they were doing. He had most all of the songs and movements memorized.

Yelling at one of the Wiggles (Sam) who was walking down the aisle toward him.

Showing off his bag. It was the cheapest thing we could buy. Ironically it was what he asked for...thank goodness!

what a great day. I wil forever remember today...Thank you Wiggles, and thank you Jesus for giving me such an amazing, joyful little boy.

Summer Fun

2009-07-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

Cruisin with cousins and Garrett

Madison and Brady (please ignore the placement of his hand!)

Chuck E Cheese or Chuck and Cheese as Brady calls it with Nana and Papa on his real birthday

Brady loves his new baseball chair from Angela!

Can I sleep with the girls?? No!

I taught summer school again this year and just finished in early July. Now I go into stores and they already have back to school stuff out!! Yikes! So we have been trying to cram all of our summer fun into this month. Brady turned 3 on July 1 and we celebrated the weekend before that. Cousins, uncle and meema came from Abilene to celebrate with us. We then left the day I got out of summer school (Brady and I) to the Frio River to spend July 4th weekend with some of Curt's family. It was a good time, but exhausting. Brady enjoyed the street dance and the parade. We didn't see fireworks (I think this was my first July 4th ever to not see fireworks...but sleep was more important that night after 2 pretty restless nights. Came back to Pearland for about a week and are now in Abilene (Brady and I) visiting my mom. We leave tomorrow to head home and then the last week in July we will hit San Antonio Sea World with Curt's sister's family and his parents. Let's see...relax...no time for that!! Here are some pics of some of our summer fun.

While I'm on here...

2009-05-30T16:12:00.000-07:00

Here are some from our day at Kemah and our trip to Camp For All as well. He is getting so big and he talks like crazy, he is addicted to baseball (yeah!) and he is full of joy!

Thought I would add some pictures of Brady since I was on here and I haven't done that in awhile. Here are some pics of him from a wedding that we went to a few weekends ago. He was so excited to wear his tie. I will remind him of that some day when he is complaining about it.

Tired after too much dancing...

Showing off his wedding suit. :) Isn't he handsome!!!

Teacher can't spell

2009-05-30T16:10:00.000-07:00

Just realized that in my previous post I spelled graduate wrong. Thought I needed to correct that since I was their teacher. :)

The reason I teach...

2009-05-30T15:52:00.001-07:00

Today I went to Bryan to see my very first class of 3rd graders graduage from high school. It was so awesome to see them walk across the stage and know that I played a small role in their journey to that moment. Knowing how hard I worked with some of them and to see that they "made it" was so rewarding. I have always loved what I do, but today I was reminded in a different way than I have ever experienced. I was so proud.

One of the kids that I worked the hardest with was George Lee pictured above (the picture I took with him did not come out :( ) George had many many obstacles to overcome in his young life and needless to say he could have gone either way and praise God he is on the right track. He was the senior class president and Senior class vice president was also a girl that I taught in 3rd and 4th grade. :)

What a great trip down memory lane!

One of those moments...

2009-05-09T16:57:00.000-07:00

So the other night I had one of those moments with Brady where I knew that if God forbid that were the last time I got to be around him, I would have felt more at peace with it. We had bath time together (sometimes I have to suck it up and get in the tub with him if we are going to get it done!) and I was acting silly and he was cracking up so hard he couldn't breathe when he laughed. then we got out and were laying in my bed together playing this new game of his where he points at imaginary things and says, "oh, there's Barney, or there's Diego. Then he was saying, "There's witchy-poo (a figure his babysitter has made it up to help get the kids to behave) and I would say oh I'm scared. Brady then put his little arm around me as we layed down facing each other and said, "I'll hold you. Don't be scared okay?"

So cute! No tv's were on, no cell phones...it was a night of just undivided attention, silliness and lots of laughter. I was reminded that I should soak up more of these moments with the ones I love because it is things like this that will remain...not Grey's Anatomy (even though it was sooo good on Thursday night!!)

I will post pictures later. Happy Mother's Day to everyone who is blessed enough to have a little piece of you running around on this Earth!

2009-04-18T14:43:00.001-07:00

Gone in a flash...

2009-01-11T14:36:00.000-08:00

So, I had the biggest scare of my life on Saturday. My friend and I took our sons to Winterfest here in Pearland on saturday. We had a great time and the last thing the boys wanted to do was this blow up thing that was an obstacle course. I helped Brady take off his shoes and sent him inside. The walls of it were too high to see inside of it from the outside unless you pushed down on the sides. Once I sent him in I walked a little ways up to meet him and about 6-10 seconds after I put him in I looked insde the obstacle course and he was not there. I looked everywhere and then I went in myself and walked, very ungracefully around that stupid blow up thing yelling his name...nothing! Now I was really panicked, but still pretty calm. I told the guy working the thing what he was wearing and he said he would check where he was and for me to go around to the front...nothing! I then started looking around the field away from the obstacle course...I spotted a kid about Brady's size wearing the same jacket about 20-30 yards away. I started running toward them and then my phone rang. The woman with him was calling the number that was tagged on him (which we did when we entered the Winterfest...THANK GOD!) Brady was just fine. I guess he had barely got in the course and then turned around and got out (this was the part I didn't see) and then he wandered off looking for me. SO SCARY! To think of all that could have happened makes me sick.

Let this be a warning parents...it doesn't take long for them to wander away. Now I hurt even more for those parents who really do lose their kids and I only lost mine for about 2 -3 minutes

Not a Fan of Santa!

2008-12-30T21:21:00.000-08:00

Christmas has come and gone...

2008-12-30T20:13:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been awhile since I've posted anything, so I thought I would try and catch up. I get on this thing all the time and read up on everyone else and every time I think, "I should update.." and then i don't. So here we go.

We were here in Houston for Thanksgiving this year...only the second time in my life to not be with my mom and dad but we had a good time at Don's (family friend) playing Croquet and sweating since it was so darn hot outside!

Christmas was great as always. Brady was very very scared of Santa this year ( was last year too, but even more so this year because he could verbalize his fear and he did...often!) But, being the good mom that I am I still made him sit on the scary man's lap (hey, my mom did it to me!) We were in Abilene for Christmas and Brady had so much fun this year opening presents...not just his, but everyones! And he gets so excited about everything! "Socks mommy!" "Wiggles, I got Wiggles! I got Wiggles! repeated about 15 times.

Watching my child and the joy he exerts reminds me every day and especially in this season to look for God in all things (even socks!) Everything should amaze me as it does Brady. I'm so, so blessed to have the family I have, the struggles we have, and the joys we experience every day. So as I enter another year and reflect on the last one...my prayer is to live in the moment...every moment I'm alive and to see more of this world through the eyes of my little boy so I can get just as excited about life as Brady gets about the Wiggles!

Happy New Year everyone! I love you all!

A life to remember...

2008-11-02T20:22:00.000-08:00

Tonight there are many people remembering the amazing spirit of Jill Atteberry (Jarvis) Jill was a great friend to me during my first 2 years at A&M. She was killed in a car accident early Sunday morning. I am still in shock over the fact that someone so young and full of life can be gone in the blink of an eye. Her baby boy was 2 months old. Please pray for her husband Scott and their baby boy Bryce who were both in the car, but physically are doing okay.

I wanted to post this because I know that so many of you that were at A&M with her would want to know. To find out specific information go to the following blog: theblessedbairdbunch.blogspot.com

Hug your loved ones a little tighter tonight and all the days ahead because we never know what tomorrow might bring. All we do know is that we serve a God who is much bigger than anything this world can bring us. Praise God for all the wonderful things he did with her life and now will do with her death.

Yo Adrian! Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T20:32:00.001-07:00

Brady had a great time going door to door as Rocky Balboa tonight. It was our first time to go door to door. Last year we went to the Children's Museum and the year before that we went to a halloween thing at a park nearby. Once he got the hang of it he had a great time running up to the door getting the candy and then turning to us and saying, "Next house?" So cute! Now Curt and I have lots of candy to eat before he eats it all!

2008-10-26T17:37:00.000-07:00

Brady is going to be Rocky Balboa for Halloween this year. His GAT (Great Aunt Trish) has made all of his Halloween costumes (Elvis, Pinochio and now Rocky). She once again did a fabulous job and here is a preview of what it looks like. I wasn't able to get very good pictures, but hopefully on Halloween he will cooperate more!

New Kids on the Block!!

2008-10-20T17:17:00.000-07:00

Okay...so I got to relive some of my childhood this weekend with my friend from high school. I went to Dallas to see the New Kids on the Block. Oh my goodness...it was so awesome! Of course they don't compare to my Nsync, but...they were pretty darn close. I know not all of you can appreciate the boy band genre...but it brings me so much joy!!

It was also fun watching all the people there dressed like it was the 80's. So much fun and so good to see my old friend again.

I always said I wanted to have 5 boys so I could have my own boy band...and I think that dream was once again brought to life after seeing those 5 boys together!

Love you all!
Mandy

Brady, the Astros, and a whole lotta fun!

2008-09-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

Curt and I took Brady to an Astros game on Wednesday. He had a great time waving at the pitchers in the bull pen, playing catch with daddy using a pair of socks (we didn't have a ball) and playing in the kids area...and oh yeah...the Astros won.

Thanks MDA for the tickets!

Hurricane Ike Update

2008-09-18T16:09:00.001-07:00

Brady wanted to help clean up the debris and he saw that we all had gloves so he ran and got some "gloves."

Well, before the hurricane I prayed that God wouldn't give us more than we could handle and of course He didn't! We don't have a fence (but we prayed that that would be the only thing we lost!) Other than that we didn't have any damage. We do have power. We were in Abilene during the hurricane so we didn't experience the terror that came with Ike. We are out of school until further notice...whatever that means. I'm ready to go back!

Fun in the Sand!

2008-06-01T19:32:00.000-07:00

This was Brady's first encounter with a real sand box. He wasn't too sure about it at first, but towards the end he let go of dad and loved it!

Fun at Schlitterbahn!!

2008-06-01T19:08:00.000-07:00

We took Brady to the Schlitterbahn in Galveston this past Saturday and had a blast! He loved it! Well...we did too! At the end of the day he actually fell asleep in my arms on a 2 man float as we floated down the lazy river. My husband on one side of me, my baby in my arms and a nice breeze taking us through the water...it was pretty close to Heaven I'm sure!

We don't get out of school until this Thursday so I am now counting down the 3 1/2 days we have to go. But then I'm teaching summer school. Not really because I want to but because where else am I going to get that kind of money???? No where! So i can endure 4 more weeks of school...I think!

2008-05-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to share with you Brady's new ride. Nana bought it at a garage sale...what a steal! He loved it. We would say put the fire out and he would grab the hose and make a sound like water was coming out.

Happy Mother's Day!!

2008-05-11T16:55:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone! Once again I am reminded today how lucky I am to be a mom. Sometimes I "forget" because I still feel like a carefree youngster....then I glance in my rearview mirror and see the car seat and crumbs and realize...oh yeah...I'm a grown-up mommy! Isn't it funny how the last time I saw alot of you that are reading this, we were in college and wondering when and if we would ever be married...much less be responsible for another human being. I love how God works..He was probably laughing at us the whole time thinking just wait...you have no idea what I have in store for you!

I however felt like I deserved a mother's day WEEKEND..not just a day. So I took off of work on Friday, took Brady to daycare and hit the outlet malls in Houston. Love it!! I feel like I celebrated all weekend, but then again...I feel like I could celebrate everyday because of how blessed I am to have such a beautiful baby on loan to me from God!

I've posted a few pictures of our mother's day celebrations...Enjoy.

Here we go...

2008-04-13T18:31:00.000-07:00

I feel like it is time for me to feel like a grown up and begin a blog as opposed to just having a myspace. In the last week I have found many old friends from A&M and as I scroll through and read about their families and look at pictures of their babies, I'm thinking I would like to share my new life with them as well. I've been married to a wonderful man for 3 years and we have a beautiful baby boy who will be 2 in July. His name is Brady Scott...for no other reason other than it sounded good to be used during all the important moments in his life. :) I teach 6th grade Reading/Language Arts and Social Studies in Pearland, Tx. I continue to love my job and feel blessed to be living the life that I am. I look forward to re-connecting with lots of people that are near and dear to my heart...so let me hear from you!