The many faces of Brandon - he was a HAND FULL today. We went to Leo's for lunch & then to Pinnacle Mountain to get some fresh air. It was a beautiful day. It may have been too much for Brandon though after a week stuck at

home. He was all over the place from happy & excited to screaming & crying in misery. What a LONG day. He's in bed now - thank goodness....

We took Tyrus to play mini-golf a couple weeks ago. I know it's been awhile, but the pictures turned out nice and it seemed a shame not to share them. Better late than never??? We left Laedyn with a law school friend of mine, Lorielle. It was nice to be able to participate!. Can you believe how tall Tyrus is now? He's only 12 - I don't think the cashier believed us, but she didn't make us pay the adult price for him. Brandon's been asking to go back ever since.

Before Brandon's tonsil imposed incarceration, I took them to the zoo. One of the lions was very playful that day, chasing a huge ball all over the place and then floating on it in the pool. Brandon really enjoyed watching that. I don't think Laedyn could see much...

Brandon had his tonsils out last Friday and has been home with me all week. It's been exhausting to have both Laedyn & Brandon full time. Especially since Brandon doesn't feel his best & he has to be still and quiet. Not an easy feat. I'd have to say impossible. We've tried to get out a little so it isn't so hard on him, so here was our solution so we could go for a walk. This was also Laedyn's first stroller ride without being in her carseat. She seemed pretty content! Nick said his back hurt...

Last time Brandon earned 5 stars (one for each day with NO timeouts at daycare) he chose to get a bug cather box as his reward. The other day he was trying to catch ants in it after he demolished their anthill. The thing with the loop on it is supposed to have a net attached, He took the net off at some point & now it's MIA. He never did get an ant in the box, but he had fun trying!

Saturday we watched the Razorback game.The kids were dressed accordingly... It was actually a bit chilly, so Brandon had on pants and long sleeves & Laedyn wore a hoody. It was rather appropriate football weather!

I know it's been awhile since I posted anything, but we've been a little under the weather around here. Brandon started it all with a cough and snotty nose. Then, I got bit by a fire ant and my foot had a itchy raised red patch that looked like a GIANT (coffee mug diameter) mosquito bite. Then I got jalepeno oil in my eye, and it swelled up & got red, crusty and sore. It was that way for a week until I went to the docotor & he gave me some drops. While he was at it he prescribed me some antibiotics in case it was pink eye - but I'd also developed a sore throat by then. After that, I progressed into a nasty deep cough and runny nose. YUCK! Throughout all this, Brandon, Laedyn & I have been running low grade fevers on & off for the past 5 days. Brandon went to see an ENT doctor last Friday. He's scheduled to have his tonsils out this Friday. It's kind of scary from the parental perspective. I feel bad because I know what kind of pain is involved and it IS a surgery. He'll be put to sleep. It's just a little scary - what if something were to go wrong??? I really don't dare think too much about that, but it keeps creeping back into my mind.

If you're wondering about Nick in all this mess ... he's fine. No symptoms. But - he's been taking Cold MD - one of those immune booster vitamin pills. He doesn't like it - says it makes him feel crooked or lopsided, but he's not sick is he?!?!

So - that's the story behind the lack of posting. I HAVE been taking some pictures though. Here are a couple from last week.

Here's Laedyn smiling - these are tough to catch on the camera. She gets distracted by the camera & just gets serious, so it's a treat to have this one! Nick's all dressed up because he gave a talk down at The Peabody.
Brandon's best friend around here, Romeo just crawls right up & makes himself at home. Brandon usually likes it unless Romeo is butting in on Brandon's attempts to get attention from Mommy & Daddy...I'll post more tomorrow that I took over the weekend.

Ben & Brandon

We all went to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese this past weekend. Brandon's friend Ben turned 4! Brandon had a great time all around.

Brandon's friend Kaleb was there too along with his new baby brother, Kade.

Laedyn & Kade will be classmates. This works out well since we like to have playdates with Kaleb already. I hope Laedyn & Kade are great friends as well.

Brandon preferred the rides over the games. He'd get part way into a game and say he was done. He never got tired of the rides though.

It's been raining quite a bit the last few days. Before going to bed the other night I decided to take a couple of after dark rain pictures just because it was raining so incredibly hard. Unfortunately the heavy rain has shown that all the efforts to fix the leaky roof have not succeeded. I guess we'll have to call the roofer. How much does a new roof cost anyway???

Here are two pictures of Laedyn and a picture of Brandon when he was about 3 months old. How much do you think they look alike? Leave me a comment & let me know!

I tried a new recipe tonight.
Don't the fresh veggies look wonderful?

It was a great success - we all liked it. It looked pretty impressive when I took it out of the oven & unsealed the aluminum foil...Lots of steam and good smells

Some of you will be shocked to hear that we're eating dinner before 7pm 90% of the time now so we can eat with Brandon. I'm also trying to step out of the tried & true comfort food cooking & add some healthy new items to our menu.
Brandon was a huge fan of the pesto sauce on the spaghetti. He even had seconds...We're also cutting back on the carbs for my sake, so this recipe came from an ATKINS best recipes book. Here's the recipe for any of you who might want to try it too.

Orange Roughy & Vegetable Pesto with Pasta:

1/2 C pesto
1 T lemon juice

1 T olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

orange roughy (the recipe says 4 6oz pieces - I just got what I thought was enough for dinner. It also called for Red Snapper, but the store didn't have that. The butcher said orange roughy would be comparable so that's what I used.)

12 asparagus spears, cut in 2" pcs (I used an entire bundle)

2 sm yellow squash thinly sliced on the diagonal

4 green onions thinly sliced (I used an entire bundle)

1 red bell pepper cut into thin strips

Pine Nuts (I bought a tiny little bag in the baking section & only used about half of it. Next time I'll dump the whole bag in)

1.) Heat oven to 425

2) Mix pesto, olive oil, lemon juice & salt. Reserve about 2T.

3) Toss vegetable in remaining pesto mixture.

4) Lay a large piece of aluminum foil on a baking sheet. Dump all the veggies onto it.

5) Place fish on top of vegetables & coat with remaining pesto mixture.

6) sprinkle pine nuts over the fish - liberally.

7) Take another piece of aluminum foil and cover the fish & veggies - crimp it together with the bottom piece of foil so you have a sealed packet.

8) Bake for 25 minutes

I bought a 10oz jar of pesto at Kroger, so I had alot left. I made some spaghetti and used the rest of the jar on the spaghetti.

Laedyn is so serious. She ABSOLUTELY refuses to smile for the camera. I only got the camera out this afternoon to get a smile picture because she was giving wonderful smile just minutes before. I think I'm going to have to get some assistance in order to get a smile shot - she's got a great one believe it or not...Stubborn child.

Brandon's coloring is improving daily. I'm glad he's starting to like to do it. I wondered if he ever would!

Here's my first foray into Photoshop Elements.
I took a boring, kind of icky picture, of our dining room light fixture and cropped it.
Then I turned it and stared applying different special effects to it.
First I changed the hue & saturation.



The other 3 effects are "palette knife" "liquify" and "plastic wrap." Liquify reminded Nick of a Dali painting - all I need to do is add some liquified watches & we'd be all set...


I think the plastic wrap effect looks like really shiny linoleum flooring.
Kinda neat!

Brandon had a wet weekend splashing in his slip & slide. He enjoyed pretending his it was a bowling alley and a boat racing lane.

Meanwhile the rest of tried to stay cool in the shade, although I did take advantage of the slip & slide to take some of my scavenger hunt pictures for flickr.com. Brandon wasn't happy when I wouldn't let him play with the glass bottles I was putting in the water. I was happy with the way the pictures turned out though! It made him slightly more happy when I was taking pictures of his sandal in the water. At least he could play with that, although it made getting a Brandon-free picture more difficult for me.