Sleeping Princes

wow...i have gotten TOO far behind on my postings, and truth is...i think about a new post daily and when i snap photos i think "oh this will make a great post", yet, time gets away and i never post them!

SO i just thought my boys looked way too cute sleeping last night and i need to snap a photo and update my bloggity blog a bit!

Oh and we also had BrotherBeans birthday party this past weekend so I'll post photos from that this week as well!!

Here are my two little sleeping princes!

Hospital trip #1...for 2011 that is

Missing our two cuties pretty bad this week!
Military Man has spent the last 5 days in the hospital for what we thought was a gall bladder attack.  Turns out the doctors aren't really sure what is going on with him just yet.  All we know is he has been through just about every test they have and has turned into a human pin cushion and we still don't have any definite answers, they are treating him pretty hard now with rounds of steroids in hopes that it fixes the problems so we will see. 
It's been really hard on BooderBean, just being away from us and the back and forth stuff.  BrotherBean--well he's pretty much like "whatever, as long as i have my paci and blanket then I'm good to go!".  My folks, and sister and brother in law have been literally, well, LIFESAVERS in all of this this past year.  If it wasn't for them i don't know what we would have done.  They have made it where i know my boys are well taken care of, on their schedules, and loved and happy, and I am able to be where i am most needed--in the hospital with MilitaryMan.  "Thank you" will never be enough for all they have done!

Mom brought the boys up for a visit today and that was so good! It was the first time they have seen daddy since he went in to the hospital on Tuesday.  It was so fun seeing them.
We did a little mini photo session here in the hospital room just so i could document the memory. 

I'll update just as soon as we get out of this hospital and back to real life! I can speak from waaaaaay too much experience that hospital life, is no life at all! Although, I have made quite a few new friends over all our stays here....nurses get to be your best friends!

Captian Destructo to the rescue!!

Well, i don't know if "to the rescue" is the right thing to say...but BrotherBean has most definitely now been dubbed "Captain Destructo"! The crazy little monkey is definitely our daredevil at home.  As a toddler, BooderBean was always so cautious and gentle and polite in his actions-yet all boy at the same time. As a toddler BrotehrBean comes in a room in a hilarity of a way, the silly kid chases his brother around the house crawling and toddling after him with this hilarious grin on his face laughing out loud the whole way-going 90 to nothing in minutes. He's not a mess, he's not a handful, he's just plain hilarious!  He's the kid who will go towards something in the house he knows he's not supposed to- all the way he's watching you with this smile and devilish grin that says "look at me mom and dad, lookie at what I'm going to do", he just loves to get a reaction out of you.

Well this weekend he got quite the reaction!  While having a stay-at-home-in-our-pj's-all-day kind of day yesterday we were busy cleaning out the toy boxes and playing with every single toy in the house all at once and BrotherBean decided to climb onto his new favorite "toy" aka-BooderBeans bed!  he loves to climb on it (because it's pretty much at his level and is the only thing he can climb onto by himself) and jump and crawl all over it like he's just done something magnificent.  Well this time it got the best of him and the side rail and his head collided in the perfect spot-smack dab in the middle of the eyes!  OUCH--it left quite the big, blue, goose egg!

He cried and wailed for about 15 minutes, then he was on the go again!!

this boy cracks us up and keeps us going 24/7. we sure love him but MAN he tires us out :)

Later this weekend we gave BrotherBean his first cup of cows milk! Here's a funny picture of him at dinner, showing off his big boy dinnerware! He looks like the good Catholic boy who's been to Ash Wednesday Mass...nope, that's a giant bruise! :)

Cruise with me baby....

Our little man is starting to cruise on his own! He's been walking around furniture like crazy for the past few months but on the day after Christmas, December 26, 2010 he finally took steps on his own! He's taking about 5 or 6 steps at a time now and then plopping on down and clapping and smiling! He's so proud of his new trick, however he does realize he can still get around much faster if he'll just crawl!

We spent Christmas WEEK in Ponca City and has a wonderful wonderful time! I have a million photos to go through before i  can even begin to post about it but here is just a quick review of the fun over the last week and a half:

• Sleeping in until 8a.m.
• Donut Day with Aunt Cinda
• Driving around till 2a.m. trying to soothe a teething baby
• Hitting the casinos
• Lots and lots of date nights
• Krout 50th Wedding Anniversary Party
• Family Bowling day
• Girls day
• Dirty Santa
• Game night

The only photo I'll post for now is this of BrotherBean crusin' on up to Santa. 

He started jabbering away with ol' St. Nick like they were buddies. 

The ones i love....

MELT my heart!
We recently had BrotherBeans 1 year photos and a few family photos taken by the very talented, trusted, loved, and great friend GreyGillFish. Below are some of my favorites from the session, although it was VERY hard to pick my favorites because so many of them are amazing!

This last one is by far my favorite! and truly brings out the BrotherBean personality!

Enjoy the new photos of my loves, and MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all!

Much love,
The Krout Sprouts

cutie pie comparisson

Last night was a pizza kind of night!

We call it "guys night" around our house...which simply means to BooderBean that he gets to sit on the couch with daddy and TV trays and watch a cartoon while they eat.

As BrotherBean and i were sitting at the table eating i realized HEY-this is his first time to have pizza! And then i remembered i had snapped a photo of BooderBeans first pizza experience so i snapped one of Brother as well.  When i went to find the photo from the past i realized that the photos were taken when both boys were exactly the same age--like down to only a few days apart!

BooderBean--1 year and 12 days old (October 2007)

BrotherBean--1 year and 8 days old (December 2010)

It amazes me to look back at the photos and compare my two cuties!



BrotherBean is ONE

How was BrotherBeans birthday you ask? Well, the word "different" comes to mind.

The poor kiddo was sick on his birthday, throwing up stomach flew a few days before and still not quite himself when the actual big day of turning ONE came. So, even though we had the cakes made, decorations and party favors bought, house cleaned and ready for company...we had to cancel my baby boys first birthday party. AND just as i started taking photos my camera battery decided to die so i had to revert to the cell phone camera...NOT what i had envisioned for so many months, but at least i got some photos.

ok WOW, that was a little dramatic right???

While it was sad to reschedule his birthday party we still made and awesome day for him of hanging around the house with just us four! It was a fun stay at home day doing all fun things that he liked to do, in fact, BooderBean and i didn't change our of our pajamas all day!

Here are a few photos from the fun stay at home lazy birthday day for our big ONE year old man!

Since we had quarantined him to the BRAT diet he didn't get to enjoy cake or any goodies on his big day, instead he got to blow out his candles in a pancake!

He wasn't too excited about the act of opening up gifts...this may be the only photo of him actually holding a gift. he would rather crawl around and wrestle on us and let big brother open the gifts.

And MilitaryMan won, the evening ended with BrotherBean getting his first haircut by daddy!

 Before...

 After...still cute as a bug!

Happy FIRST birthday to my little man!

Flashback Foto Friday!!

This FLASHBACK of photos is of BooderBean on his 1st birthday! This is probably my most favorite photo of him that day, i know it's not the "perfect" photo that all moms aim for on their child's first birthday, but MAN it's one that has me cracking up every time i look at it!

He was a tad upset by the flame and the fact that he got icing on his hands and was dirty!

Now, that boy wouldnt' care one bit if he got dirty, and he has been asking since July when we get to do fireworks again, so flames are no problem.

This Sunday we will celebrate BrotherBeans 1st birthday and i secretly hope to get a photo like this of him :)

I'll be posting on Monday!!

A Christmas Date

BooderBean and Mommy had a fun crafty Christmas day last weekend!  The two of us got out all the fun family ornaments and went to work decorating HIS tree that goes in his room.  We discussed each and every homemade ornament and talked about all the memories of each bought ornament that I have collected or received over the years.  He was so proud to put his tree up in his room.

That evening just him and I headed to the Mrs. Claus Wonder Express!  It was a fun evening of Christmas songs, crafts, skits, stories and snacks.  He had so much getting to meet Mrs. Clause and the elves! 

And at one point he even said "I like it when it's just you and me" awwwww...talk about melt your mommas heart!!! We'll be having more dates more often!

cowboy cuties

WOWEE...is this one cute four year old or what?!?!?

BooderBean loves to wear jeans and boots...that's pretty much what he asks to wear every day when we are picking out his clothes the night before,

i have to pretty much force him to wear comfy clothes sometimes! 

TRIPLE WOWEE...aren't these the most handsome men ever????

11 month Bean

This precious little baby boy is 11 months old today.

Do you know what that means???? He will be ONE in a month from today. and WOW am i not believing that one at all! He had a pretty rough couple of months when he was younger and some pretty scary times in the hospital but he is such a fighter we just knew he would pull through! He is the most smiley little boy you have ever met! Here are a few points about BrotherBean at 11 months:

• He eats anything and everything you put in front of him
• He lights up when his big brother walks in the room
• He loves the refrigerator, and can come out of no where crawling 90 to nothing when he hears the door open up
• He loves to roll around in clean, warm laundry
• He smiles ALL the time
• He loves to clap, "clack" with his tongue, pull socks off his feet, throw his head back and laugh, mimic you and imitate what you do
• He can say "mama" "dada" and "bubbas"
• He loves to stand and bounce and walk along furniture a bit
• He loves to get near the dogs food and water bowls...and he knows i hate it, so with a sheepish grin he does it anyway
• He goes to bed smiling and wakes up smiling

Happy 11 month birthday BrotherBean!

Fall Fun

What is Fall without a roll in the leaves?

It's so amazing and wonderful to me how these two boys of mine absolutely love each other! When BrotherBean walks in the room BooderBean literally lights up and screams with excitement. I hope they go on the rest of their lives taking care of each other, looking out for each other, and loving each other!

My Sweets and their Treats

We had a weekend FULL of festivities!  We started the weekend with Mexican dinner and mango margaritas to celebrate my early 30th birthday and my brothers early 24th birthday!  The evening was so fun and full of family! My folks surprised my brother and sister and i with tickets to the Transiberian Orchestra concert in December!!!!! Something I've been wanting to do for years, so talk about surprise!!!

The rest of the weekend included the following fun activities which I'll post about throughout the week:  early morning play-doh fun just BooderBean and I, baking for a cake walk, Fall Carnival at the boys school, potato sack races, playing in the leaves, trick-or-treating multiple times, building a fort, reading Halloween books in bed, shopping and major meltdowns, more trick-or-treating!

Halloween Night 2010:

Trick-or-Treating to Ponca City family:

BrotherBean and Aunt Sandy with a Halloween card:

Trick-or-Treating to Glencoe family

 Mommy and her boys hitting up the last houses:

Last photo of the night in their costumes-looking oh so tired!

In PJ's and loaded in the truck, ready to head home after a night of fun!

Happy Halloween

More photos will be taken this weekend but I had to post a quick one of the first time the boys were in their costumes!  MilitaryMan and I sewed and stitched and glued and cut until the weeeee hours of the night the night before they had to be worn for their first trick or treating event.  Didn't try the costumes on them until it was time to go-and said a quick prayer that all worked out well! We have 4 more Halloween events this weekend where they will get to dress up again...so needless to say the costumes will get some miles in!

Happy Halloween from my brave Fireman and his little Dalmatian brother :)

Par-Tay

BooderBean celebrated his 4th birthday this month and I have been so behind on my blogging that i completely forgot to post photos!
His party was SO MUCH fun for him and his friends, this was our first friends party and I think it went well.  I didn't get nearly as many photos as i had wanted (doesn't it always end up that way?) but i did have so much fun watching my boy and his buddies play! Maybe next year I'll be hiring our photographer friend, GreyGillFish, to come play and take party photos!

Apparently he loved the icing! and then insisted i take a photo so he could see his face :)

Even BrotherBean had a blast in the toddler area of the Gym

Time for cupcakes and ice-cream! These are his school friends and cousins with him.

Two of his school friends helping him open gifts.

Time to line up for cake! Here he was waiting for his BFF Addyson to come get in line-he even made the whole party wait for cake so she could get in line with them :)

I made his cake (as i do every year), and the theme was camouflage...this was a VERY last minute decision by BooderBean-as he changed his mind daily as to what he wanted the theme to be, finally he decided on camo and I did the cake design idea the night before, didnt' turn out nearly as cute as i wanted but hey--it was eaten right :)

I can't believe how big my little man is! Four years have gone by so fast.  He's gone from my little tiny baby--ok not really, he was born weighing in at 9lbs 8oz--to my big smart, strong, talented, happy, helpful, thoughtful, sensitive, considerate, creative, hilarious, snugly, big man!  I love this boy to pieces and every morning when he wakes up and runs in asking "is it morning yet? can i get up?" I thank God he is mine!