Occasional break of dawn cereal dates before daddy heads to work ^^ And Ryan's 15 toys he insists on bringing to the table to eat. :)

Saturday afternoon well spent - Feeding ducks and playing some ball ^^

Our playroom is always kind of looking like a tornado hit until we pick it up every night  ^^ HA.
And I love that Luke has to always be right next to Ryan. Even though Luke is always doing something wrong in Ryan's mind. Whether it's "accidentally" kicking the toys, or wanting to suck on his blocks, Ryan has little episodes of being impatient, but he can't be in a room without him.

I love it.

SOOO, Life was pretty normal and low key until one Thursday morning...


Get ready for the most bazaar thing you have ever heard.. I went in Ryan's room to get him in the morning from bed to find a slightly shocked 3 year old and so. much. blood. ( sorry for the graphic picture I may have just painted in your mind, it was awful! )

To keep from freaking out, I did some deep breathing.. My heart just sank.
You could clearly tell Ryan had just woken up and had no idea what was going on.
He started to cry because of the "red stuff" that covered his clothes, and sheets.
Why he wasn't crying or in deep amounts of pain still blows our minds!
I wake up a few times with Luke every night and we clearly would have heard him cry in the middle of the night if he had known what happened and had been in pain.

Anyways, I called Aaron who had just gotten to work and told him to come home immediately.
Rushed him to the ER and got quite the amount of stares in the hallway :) (( That picture ^^ was AFTER we cleaned his face of blood, the before shot was so awful! ))

To this day, we have theories of "how it happened" but don't know exactly how.
We DO know it happened in the middle of the night in his sleep. After a "crime scene investigation" as my husband describes it, evidence leads us to thinking it could have been the window seal? ( which is the only slightly sharp object in his entire room! )

Here's our theory.
We are thinking he dropped his stuffed shark ( which was covered in blood )
got out of bed to pick up the shark, ( according to the blood drops on the carpet )
and tripped and hit his head on the window seal ( which would explain the two drops of blood on the wall ),
and then somehow crawled back into bed after it happened and fell back asleep??

My lawyer of a husband was breaking down every little piece of evidence HA

Crazy that he has never had a history of sleep walking and I think we puzzled every doctor in the ER when they heard his story. SO crazy!!!
Ryan is convinced he fell off of a slide ( which he did - the day before at a friends house but no bumps or bruises came from that ) HA
So it's quite the comical story listening to him tell a slightly different story every time someone asks what happened to him. #parentsoftheyear

Until the doctor held him down for stitches he was SO good.
We were so proud of how brave he was through the whole thing!
Of course, I never let him see his head in the mirror because I didn't want him to freak out.
Poor babe!

So Ryan has quite the little battle wound.

Eventually the outer glue should fall off but until then, he's rockin the look.

He's been such a little rockstar and has made 2016 pretty high speed so far! HA

And ok, How cute is his little golf bag !? ^^
Can't wait until he is old enough to get in actual golf lessons. He loves it!


Love these crazy babes! ^^ ( even though they almost give us a heart attack on occasion! ) HA

ANNNDDD Ryan in my sister's old pink marshmallow snow suit for the win! ^^ ( I'm actually secretly a little sad he probably won't fit in it next Christmas when we visit )

Seeing this cute thing cheer always makes us happy. ^^

An airport phone picture ^^ because stepping off that 3 hour flight by myself with these two crazies is an accomplishment in my book :)

A "Flying with TWO" post will be coming soon, because I wished I had read a few tips before flying my first flight alone with two! 

Anddd to end with Ryan... I'm pretty sure his life motto is "When in doubt, shake it" ^^ :)

Not sure how he is already that old!

Fastest 4 months of my life! But we can't imagine life without baby Luke!

He adds the perfect amount of sweetness and "Chill" that our household sometimes needs during some crazy 3 year old tantrums that seem to be occurring more frequently HA.

Adjusting from one kid to two was a little tough for me, but also easier in ways where I assumed it would be harder. If that makes any sense at all?! Just roll with it :)

The hardest adjustment for me has been the amount of energy I felt I lacked in the transition from 1 to 2! So I thought of the top 3 things that have helped ME since having two kiddos to have more energy every day.

#1. GO TO BED AT A DECENT HOUR. This may be self explanatory but seriously makes all the difference in my attitude and mood for the day!

Get your SLEEP!  I remember after just having Ryan and having a rough night when he was sick, wouldn't eat, ETC, and I was exhausted. HOWEVER, that exhaustion was made better with the fact that I was able to sleep the next day anytime he slept. :) Fast forward to NOW, having two kids and regardless of the night I have had with baby Luke, I'm up bright and early when my toddler calls "MOMMY" from his bedroom at whatever time that may be. 

Aaron and I have had to adjust our schedule a little to make sure we still have "US" time at night, while also getting to bed at a decent hour so I can get up, get in a little workout, and have enough energy for my morning "MOMMY" call from my 3 year old.

2 things that helped with getting more sleep and adjusting our schedule...

#1. Put the kids to bed earlier to make sure we get plenty of "US time".

#2. Save movies and certain shows till the weekend so we aren't tempted to keep watching until late hours. We obviously have had a history of this :)

#2. WORK OUT BEFORE THE KIDS GET UP.

Ok, I realize some of you go to the gym and take the kids - totally awesome! But if you are like us with no gym pass and doing morning DVD's or morning runs, try and do them before the kids get up.

If you follow step #1 at getting to bed at a decent hour, your body can get up 30 minutes earlier from your normal wake up time to work out. I have such a better day with WAY more energy if I get up, workout, and have breakfast almost ready by the time Ryan wakes up. Sometimes Ryan gets up earlier than usual and throws off my schedule so I put a show on for him, get him a little baggie of cereal to hold him over until breakfast and then I go and finish my workout. Everyone can do 30 minutes. Just remember that tomorrow morning :)
I am 95 percent sure I will NOT work out if I don't start before the kiddos wake up, it's SO much harder when they are up! ( plus there are a million and five more excuses to justify NOT working out when they are up ) 

Once you have the energy, gosh it's the cutest best thing ever watching them together.
My mommy heart just explodes.

Sometimes I double take my kids because they are SO similar. The first thing I notice in this picture is the same little button nose! ^^ Little twinners. Ryan gets so frustrated because Aaron and I call him "Luke" and Luke, "Ryan" half the time. Always messing them up. We are totally "THOSE" parents.
Aaron's like "Well honey, I guess we have a definite "mold" for the look of our children" HA and apparently Aaron has really strong genes because our babies have "POWELL" written all over them. :)


Ryan joins in on tummy time.
"Luke do a funny face like me!"
And this is Luke's face 95 percent of the time while he watches Ryan be all crazy. ^^
( And yes Ryan's right eye is starting to swell. Poor thing. This is before it got really really bad, but that's a story for another day :) )

Oh let's not forget that Ryan wanted his sharks to ride in the caboose with Luke but wanted Luke NOT to touch them. This is him saying "NO BABY LUKE, You can't touch my sharks!"  ^^ He is clearly still learning to share his toys with his brother. HA Luke is a little saint - just chill as ever!

Luke hardly ever cries. Best baby ever.

But I will say, he WILL cry is when you set him down while we eat dinner.

It's like he knows what's going on and doesn't want to miss out on hearing Ryan's 500 stories he has to tell daddy when he gets home from work.

So Luke is ALWAYS at the table with us.

Granted Ryan puts him to sleep with his story telling and Luke doesn't quite make it through dinner wide eyed ;) but he is always there with us.

( And yes, Aaron is eating a veggie straw.. ^^ We keep dinner classy over here! )

Please be best best friends one day. ^^

So as long as Luke doesn't "accidentally" touch Ryan's sharks,
we have a happy household :)
But in all seriousness, they are the cutest together, and Luke just lights up every time Ryan walks in the room!
I'm so happy they will always have each other.
Here's to being a mom to the TWO sweetest baby boys! The best.

We spent a weekend with my in-laws in Galveston for my first time ever!

Can't believe I have lived here for 4.5 years and this was a first for me!

We went to fun restaurants like Rainforest Cafe ( they have a rainforest cafe RIDE that Ryan LOVED ) and Bubba Gumps.

We saw monkeys and butterflies in the rainforest, and sharks at the aquarium ( You should see Ryan's face when he see's a REAL shark! )

A 3 year old heaven!

Writing his 10th letter to Santa. ^^

You can never send too many right!?

We went to College Station to Santa's Wonderland. ^^
The lights were incredible and the hot cocoa is amazing.
( If not for the lights, go for the hot chocolate HA )
I would recommend it to anyone in the area for next Christmas season!

Good thing Santa got the letter ;)

Mr. Ry finished his first "semester" of preschool!
He loves his teacher "Ms. Alisha" and says the pledge of allegiance about 10 times a day HA
He also learned how to write his name all by himself and he's pretty proud of himself after he does it.
He still has a couple more years until Kindergarten but gosh I love watching him take it all in!

How's that for a million different topics wrapping up December!?
We did head to Utah for New Year's and were able to be with  my whole family and extended family and it was wonderful!
SO. MUCH. SNOW.

P.S> thanks for being patient while I took a little time off blogging. Getting the hang of this whole 2 kiddo mommy thing :) while also doing my best to "simplify" life a little better not to feel like I am running around like a crazy woman all of the time :)