It's been a while!

Yes, I'm aware that I've neglected our family blog and I'm sorry!  We've been so busy lately, and any spare moment that I have is spent outside enjoying this beautiful weather.  Don't you just love this time of the year?  It's not too hot or cold.... just perfect!  Braxton loves being outside, so we try to spend as much time as possible out there.  It's a win-win situation!  With much help from our family and friends, many prayers, and many sleepless nights (for him, haha!), Phillip's photography business is starting to take off!  His calendar is becoming much more colorful with sessions being written in ink.  Our weekends are becoming VERY fast paced.  There's not much relaxing going on in the Carlisle household these days.. :)  However, we did take time out of our busy schedule to take (once again) pictures!  Phillip was able to capture some of the most breathtaking Easter photos of Braxton that I will cherish forever.  We were also able to take a few family portraits (Thanks to our awesome friends, Brandon and Mandy).  I have to admit, it's pretty awesome having a husband that takes such gorgeous pictures.  Atleast I know that as my children grow older, we will always have memorable photos to remind us of the things that matter most!  One thing is for certain in life:  You can't stop time, but you can capture those moments that you want to treasure for all time!  Thank you, Phillip, for all that you do for our family.  I'm looking forward to seeing those treasured photos of our family one day.  And one day, when I'm older and much wiser, I will sit down with my children and grandchildren, and look back at those photos with a big smile and know that my hard-working husband was able to capture those special moments in our lives.


Ok, now on to the less mushy-gushy stuff!  Here are a few of our Easter pictures:

Here are some other pictures from the Easter egg hunt at our church:

What's for dinner?

I'll give you one guess as to what we had for dinner tonight:

Surely you can tell that we had spaghetti for dinner tonight, right?!  The spaghetti MESS is a result of Braxton learning to feed himself.  He is very independent, and has recently decided that if he doesn't feed himself, he doesn't want to eat at all.  He's learning to eat with a fork/spoon, but sometimes he decides that his hands would be much more fun (as in the picture above).  As if this wasn't enough of a mess, we decided to top it all off with a Moon Pie, given that today is Mardi Gras!  I decided to spare you with that picture, even though I know you would love to see spaghetti topped with gooey, chocolatey marshmallow crumbs!  Even better, I wish YOU were here to help clean it all up.  It was most definitely a great time!

Notice the orange (not from the spaghetti.. it's actually orange) shirt that Braxton is wearing?  This is his "Nemo" shirt.  Now, I know this is not actually a Nemo shirt, but Braxton seems to think it is.  I guess since it's orange like Nemo!  This is his FAVORITE shirt.  One day after church, we came home and changed clothes.  I got this shirt out of his drawer, pulled it over his head, and he automatically pointed to the shirt and said "Nemo!"  He LOVES his Nemo shirt!

Up Up and Away!

Braxton is amazed by the airplanes that fly over our house, so we thought that he would enjoy going to the airport to watch them take off and land.  We packed the truck with the necessities (diapers, wipes, a sippy cup with juice, and his toy airplane), and off we went!  We made a pit stop at the ice cream store since it was such a warm, sunny day, and then we finally arrived at the airport.  We parked in two different spots, and every time a plane would take off, it would go in the opposite direction!  We would then move to the other location, only to see another airplane take off going in the opposite direction of where we were.  Needless to say, we didn't get a good view of the airplanes, but we had a ton of fun! Here are a few of our pictures from the outing!

Throw me something, mister!

Growing up in West Alabama, we never heard too much of Mardi Gras, especially Mobile's Mardi Gras.  When we moved to Mobile, we quickly realized what Mardi Gras was!  It's weeks of parades, barracades lining the streets of downtown Mobile for the entire month of February/Early March, moonpies, beads, cups, stuffed animals, King Cakes, laughter, and fun!  This past Saturday, we enjoyed going to the Mobile Mystics parade with some friends.  It was so much fun watching all the floats, bands, etc.  Braxton viewed the parade from his DaDa's shoulders, and he loved playing with the beads that we caught.  I hope we have the chance to go to a few more parades before it's over!  Happy Mardi Gras!

Splish Splash

Braxton LOVES taking a bath.  Anytime we mention anything about a bath, he runs to the bathroom saying, "BATH! BATH! BATH!"  If we would let him, he would spend all night in there splashing around!  Here are a few pictures from his bubble bath tonight!

 Bubbles, rubber duckies, and a naked baby booty!

Can you see my teeth?!

 He's having a ball!

Swimming! I can already imagine what he will think in 15 years when he sees this picture... "Mom! Geez!"

Finishing off the night with a bowl of Blue Bell ice cream!

Night Night!

All About Our Weekend!

We had a wonderful weekend at home enjoying the beautiful weather! Here's a list of what went on with us this weekend!

1.  Bring on the springtime weather! We love being outside playing and enjoying the sun!

2.  Braxton is growing so much every day.  From talking, walking, and playing, it's amazing to watch him grow and discover new things. 

3.  We are amazed at how much Braxton has learned after completing only 2 months of the "Your Baby Can Read" series.  We have many more to do before the end, so I can only imagine how well it works in the end!  I'm working on a video to put on our blog to show you his progress.  He can read "Hi", "Clap", "Smiling", "Yes", "No", "Nap", Roll Over", etc.  Braxton would rather watch these videos than watch cartoons, which is great!  When we turn on his "movie", he automatically sits down and watches it, which he will not do with cartoons.  I can't wait to show you all! It's truly unbelievable.

4.  I am not as limber as I once was! After getting a spurt of energy Sunday afternoon, I decided to show Braxton how I could do a hand-stand and a cartwheel.  Needless to say, I'm a little sore this morning! It was alot of fun, and he enjoyed watching and laughing at me!  He also tried to do his own hand-stand, which was adorable! :)

5.  We have an interesting Mexican couple living a few houses down from us.  They are really annoying with their VERY LOUD Mexican music playing all the time.  This weekend while Phillip and Braxton were outside working in the garage, Braxton heard the insanely loud Mexican music, walked down the driveway to see what was going on, then started DANCING in the driveway to their music! I wish I would've been out there to witness this!  I'm still laughing just picturing it!

6.  Talking about the Mexicans again..  They have this very old Volkswagon Beetle that they are working on constantly.  Every weekend, they pull it out of their garage, pop the hood, and start raising the engine on it.  It's not that bad until Braxton is trying to take a nap, THEN I get a little mad.  Anyways, after working on their car yesterday, the wife decided she was going to take it for a spin.  She got in the car, drove it down the road in our neighborhood, turned around, and tried to put it in reverse, which she couldn't figure out how to do.  Then, her husband had to go walk all the way down the road to show her how to reverse the car, and bring it back to the house.  All this is going on, and the music is still BLARING from their house.  We enjoy watching them.  They're very entertaining!

7.  This weekend I learned that no matter how hard I try, I cannot throw a frisbee! After almost knocking the windows out of the house, and throwing the frisbee on top of the house, we decided to give up.  Phillip tried to teach me some of his frisbee throwing skills, and it helped a little.  It's going to take much more practicing though!

8.  Braxton loves playing with sticks!  When we go outside, he will walk past his new trampoline, swingset, trucks, and balls to go find a stick!  It's quite funny, but it makes me happy that he enjoys the outdoors.  He loves to walk around with his stick and kick at pinecones!

9.  After 18 months, Braxton is still afraid of the vacuum cleaner!  You would think that over time, he would grow to be more comfortable with it, but he's not.  He starts breathing hard and shaking when we get it out to clean!  He really does NOT like it at all.

10.  After a very busy Sunday, all we wanted to do was have a relaxing night.  Yeah right.. What were we thinking?!  After finishing cleaning up the kitchen after supper, Phillip said, "I'm going to sit down for a few minutes." And I replied, "So am I!"  As I turn off the light in the kitchen, all of a sudden we hear a loud noise in the foyer.  Guess what it was?!  It was the noise of Braxton dumping out his box of 250-piece lego blocks onto the floor!  Phillip looked at me and said "GREAT!!" and I replied, "IT NEVER ENDS!!!"  :)

Happy Monday, everyone!

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day, everyone!  I hope that you all had a wonderful day.  Braxton had a party at daycare today.  They enjoyed corndog happy meals and valentines cupcakes (made by yours truly!).  Mrs. Windy, one of Braxton's teachers, told me that he LOVED the corndog! She said that she tried to keep him from shoving all of the corndog in his mouth at once!  They also exchanged valentines, which were such fun to look at!  He received a valentine with tattoos, so I'm sure we'll be experimenting with them sometime this week! 

Our day was pretty much the same as always. Wake up, get dressed, take Braxton to daycare, go to work, pickup Braxton from daycare, come home... But it was a little different today.  When we got home, we exchanged our Valentines gifts!  Braxton was so excited to see his gift.  He was most excited about the puppy dog and the rain boots; however, he wasn't too sure of the boots once they were on!  My wonderful husband gave me a sweet card and a gift certificate to the spa, and I can't WAIT to use it!! I have the option to pick 2 services out of 3: 1 hour massage, 1 hour facial, or a 1 hour spa pedicure... Can we say HEAVEN?! Ahhh...  He is also preparing our dinner tonight: filet mignon, baked potatoes, and bread.  If you're not convinced that he is the perfect husband as of yet, it gets better.  He has agreed to watch The Bachelor with me tonight! I am so spoiled and I love it!

My gifts for him were not as great as the ones he gave me. He received a card, a box of chocolates, and one of his favorite desserts: Strawberry Delight.  I believe he was happy with his gift.  I haven't heard much out of him, just the crackling noise of the wrappers on the chocolates! 

Here are a few pictures of our Valentines Day! Enjoy!

The shirt says it all!