Disney World!!!

We were fortunate enough to get to take Brock and Ryan to Disney World this month. We had a blast and the kids will be talking about it for a long time!

Give the boys a DVD player and a movie and a plane ride is nothing!
The first ride we went on was Buzz Lightyear's ride, of course! This was Brock's favorite ride as he's a HUGE Buzz Lightyear fan. Here's Buzz...
...and his Space Rangers!!
This was taken as soon as we got out of the Buzz Lightyear ride and they bought their first toys...laser blasters!!!
We got to have dinner with some of the Disney characters, among them, Donald Duck...
...and Mickey Mouse!!!
This is one of my favorite pictures.
This is the other!We went to Dinoland in Animal Kingdom. It was awesome and it was one of the boy's favorite places. They had a huge playyard...and this waterfall that they just couldn't keep from playing in!

This is the "after" picture. Both Brock and Ryan love water and got absolutely soaked!! Good thing we had an extra set of clothes!
This was outside the Nemo ride. I'm not sure which I liked more, the ride or this aquarium garden!

We stopped over in Africa (in Epcot) to eat and while waiting for our food, the boys found these drums and entertained everyone with their musical abilities.

The boys also got to meet a couple of the Little Einsteins, Leo & June. They are big Little Einstein fans, so this was a special treat!

Here's a video of Ryan dancing with Goliath (the lion) and June. Give it a few seconds and the camera is adjusted...very cute dancing!

Salute!!!!

While waiting to meet Buzz & Woody, Brock and Ryan got to meet one of the "Green Army Men" from Toy Story. What good little soldiers (or if Daddy has anything to do with it, Marines!) they'll make one day!

We spent the better part of one day at Typhoon Lagoon, one of the Disney waterparks. The boys had so much fun...like I said before, they LOVE water!

There is a really cool boat in the kids part that has these water cannons. We had a blast shooting each other...and other kids and parents!

It also has this great tube ride just for little kids. This was Ryan's favorite thing to do...he must've rode this thing 20 times!!

At Hollywood Studios they have a play area called "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." Everything there is larger than life and you feel like you're underground. Here we are riding an ant!

There is also a boneyard at Dinoland where the kids got to dig up a mammoth fossil.

This is another character dinner that we went to where the kids met Minnie Mouse...

...and Goofy (their favorite), among others. We had so much fun at Disney and did so many neat things. But do you know what they talk about most? Swimming in the pool at the campground!!!! This was no fancy pool, either, but they sure had a great time!

Our Little Daredevils!

(If you'd like to see the pictures we had taken by Disney photographers, let me know and I'll send you a link. I tried to put one on here, but I can't get it to work for some reason!)

Painting the Bathroom

We painted the boy's bathroom this past weekend and Brock was so excited to help me paint!

Ryan said that he wanted to help, but the moment he got paint on himself, he started screaming for me to get it off. So, his help with painting didn't last too long!

Brock got most of the paint on the walls, but he got a lot of it on the floor...

...And on his feet!!!!

(I didn't think of taking a picture until I had already cleaned one off!)

Our Little Hambones

Here are some of our silly shots from April!

Check out Brock & Ryan's version of "Pop Goes the Weasel."
(Please excuse my singing!)

Here's our own American Idol!

The Real Campout

The following weekend, the Bryan Parks & Rec Dept. had a family campout at one of the local parks. It was a really neat event for the kids and they had a great time. Once again, it got really cold through the night, but the rest of the campout was a lot of fun.

Throwing the Frisbee

Hanging out by the tent

Eating Smores!

Our First Family Campout ~ In The Backyard!

Our first family campout was in our backyard. We were testing the boys out to see how they would do. Everything went great and they loved it...until it got down to 49 degrees through the night and we had to come in the house at 2:30 am!! The boys loved it and we will be camping a lot more in the future.

Backyard Baby Bunny ~ Apr. 1, 2008

Brock & I were playing in the backyard, when I heard this squeaking sound. I looked over and noticed that our dog, Max, had caught something. I was terrified that it was a mouse, so we ran over to him and made him drop what he had in his mouth. I looked down and saw a little cottontail!!! I ran over and picked it up, and sure enough there was a tiny baby bunny. It was so cute and scared to death! Brock and I took him up to our patio and held it and cuddled it. Brock was so excited! I noticed later that it had a slight cut in its fur where Max bit it, but it didn't look like it had punctured the muscle at all and there was no bleeding, so we thought he'd be o.k. I went and woke Ryan up from his nap so he could see it and hold it before we let it go back to its mommy. A little while later I figured out that at some point the bunny had died. We were all very sad...especially Brock who wanted to keep it as his pet. We then had to deal with our first "death" issue. It was a lot of fun to hold the bunny and the kids now know that Grammy & Grandpa Brockman are playing with it up in heaven.

March 2008

Some good pictures of the boys this month....

Brock has been taking gymnastics classes since he was about 2 1/2-years old. One of his favorite things to do is the rings. We have rings on our swingset and he loves to hold them and try to pull his feet up all by himself. He hasn't been able to do it until a few days ago. He was so excited and proud of himself!!

So, here's a video of his Big Strong Muscles!

Easter 2008

Easter was a lot of fun this year. Ryan is now old enough to really participate and Brock had a good time, too. We dyed eggs, which was quite an experience with a 4- and a 2-year old. Brock did pretty good with it, but Ryan didn't understand why you couldn't just slam the eggs on the table over and over again!!! We ended up with about 4 or 5 broken/cracked eggs and the rest we were able to dye!

Hunting for eggs was great, too. Brock kept finding all the eggs, so we would have to make him put some of them back so Ryan could find some. He did o.k. with that, but then he just started to find them and bring them to Ryan. We had to explain that Ryan actually liked looking for the eggs! He's a great big brother and we knew he was just trying to help Ryan.

The Easter Egg hunt itself takes quite a while at our house. With every egg they found, they had to open it and eat the candy before they would hunt for another egg! This didn't work so well when Ryan would find one of the real eggs...and try to "open" it. He would squeeze it, break it, realize there was no candy inside and then throw it back on the ground!!!

Here's Brock checking for candy before he moves on to hunting for some more eggs....

...and here's Ryan eating the candy straight from the egg! My boys don't mess around!!!

Ryan's BIG Boo-Boo

Ryan had his first major accident this week. He was running with his step-stool and tripped on the carpet and hit his eye. I thought I might have to take him to the ER to get stitches, but it stopped bleeding and he seemed to get through it o.k. He was a pretty tough little guy when he got his first shiner!!

It looked much worse the next day!

Mar. 7, 2008 ~ Snow in College Station?!?!?

Yes, it actually snowed in College Station!!! It started about 7:00 am. We got the boys dressed quickly (no telling how long it would last!) and outside. It melted as soon as it hit the ground, but it was a lot of fun to see the boys so excited to see snow! They had a good time running around in it and trying to catch it.

Feb. 2008 ~ Bikers & Vets

Biker Brock ~ A neighbor and co-worker of Steve's has a motorcycle that Brock just thinks is so cool! One day, Jay let him sit on it and he thought that was just the best thing ever!!
Future Vets? Our dog, Max, had to have a toenail removed and after it was healed we had to take the bandage off. The boys wanted to help, of course, and were very gentle with Max.