Brian's Birthday!

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My biggest boy is 9! It's the last year before we hit the dreaded double digits and life will forever change :(   I cannot believe that my sweet firstborn is now 9! He has all of the wonderful things that make up a nine year old to go along with it...constant eye rolls, acting like I am completely retarded, arguing about everything, a reason for always being right, finding me completely embarassing and so much more! But on the other hand, when he wants to be he can be my most helpful, sweetest, most caring, most responsible and best of the bunch! He is suddenly concerned about his image, he has rules when I cut his hair and he has taken a notice in girls...ugh! I was actually informed by three Mom's in his class that he winks at the girls!The dreaded years are quickly approaching and I am so blessed to be the Mom of this little man!

Unfortunately to my guy playing hard and never thinking of the consequences, he is on his third concussion in a year! He fell on his head at recess this past week and has vision loss as well as pounding headaches. His birthday trip to Six Flags has been postponed as he is on a 10 day mandated period of doing absolutely nothing! No video games, schoolwork, any form of exercise or anything that strains his brain! Gaga & Papa came here instead and we took Brian to Animal World & Snake Farm, a place we pass all the time on our way to San Antonio and watched on Dirty Jobs!  What a fun place! The boys all held snakes, we walked around the coolest animal sanctuary and hand fed baby goats! After a lunch at Longhorn Steakhouse we returned home to a Lego cake! A pretty low key birthday for our usual daredevil but nonetheless...
super fun!!!

Easter...

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The day I have been dreading since I had kids is upon me...Brian figured out the truth. I have had a hunch it was coming, he has been complaining about Easter and what a dumb holiday it is all week. I even told Craig I think it's coming and we decided to play dumb, ignore it and hopefully it would go away. We were literally minutes from leaving the house to go see the Easter Bunny when Brian came into my room, locked the door and said "I've got a question". My stomach was in knots as the next question came..."are you and Dad the Easter bunny?" It literally took everything in me to not start crying. I sat him down and we proceeded to have a long discussion about both Santa and the Easter Bunny. He seemed delighted with his newfound news and not sad in the least. I on the other hand was a basket case just waiting for him to leave my room so I could cry. All said in done, I am proud that he is smart enough to figure it out, that he was gracious enough to lock the door so his brothers couldn't hear and happy that he is growing up...but I am just sad about the whole thing. On the plus, he didn't ask and I didn't tell about the tooth fairy so maybe there is some hope!

We still went and saw the bunny. Luke and Matt were still as excited as ever while Brian kept shooting me these "what he thought were not obvious" glances and eyes. He did take that knife and stab it deeper however when he got a picture hugging the bunny. It was like a final farewell for my broken heart.

Easter weekend was spent at Gaga & Papa's. Gaga thought there wouldn't be enough candy so she literally stuffed a full sized piñata as well! The kids had a ball beating the tar out of the 'never going to break piñata'! The hook came off, we tried various methods and finally Craig & DJ just tore it open! Seriously...longest piñata breaking I have ever witnessed! Family Birthday party was up next for all the March & April Birthdays! Kerry & Mackenzie even joined us via Skype! Brian and Matt were overjoyed with their loot, especially Uncle Johnny's original Super Nintendo that Kerry managed to re-gift from herself!  Egg dying is my annual least favorite activity and fortunately there was enough adults on hand that I did not have to partake in this god-awful tradition! Luke was on a serious Easter high and at 6:30pm announces to everyone "That's it, enough fun! Everyone, it is time to get to bed so the bunny can come!"

The next morning we woke up to find that the bunny did in fact come and leave us super fun baskets, along with money filled eggs hidden all over the house! Craig and I did partake in a new tradition...hiding Brian's basket as hard as we could. Since he knows it us, there can be no meltdowns as to "maybe the bunny forgot me". He obviously now knows we put it somewhere and now each year he is up for the challenge!