A special day today....

9 years ago today this beautiful boy came into this world. Brennan Todd Hydorn- 7 lbs. 6 oz.- 20 inches long. I thought he looked just like his brother did when he was born, but after the first 24 hours he began to take on his own little look. I was thrilled to have a healthy baby, and Bradley was so happy to have a little brother. The only thing that would've made it better for Bradley is if we'd have named him Leon. He was insistent throughout the pregnancy that a little brother should be named Leon. Why??? I have no idea....

After a rough start (colic, milk allergy, post pardum depression for me) we settled into a nice routine, and Brennan was a happy little boy. We loved his blonde hair (no idea where it came from), and bubbly personality. Some of the nicknames we gave him were Peeks and Little Man. Little Man is often what he's called today (and Bradley is Big Guy). Here he is enjoying his cake on his 2nd birthday. He was all about Blues Clues back then!

Daddy and Brennan playing peek a boo! (one of the reasons he got the nickname "Peeks").

Here he is looking cool in his shades and enjoying a ring pop while staying at Nana and Papa's. He got to stay there in the summertime while Mom and Dad went on little vacations. I'm glad he got to spend that time with my mom since she passed away when he was so young. I hope he remembers all of the fun things he did with them.

Brennan on his 5th birthday- he specifically requested a "black cake with black frosting and sprinkles" (ie- chocolate cake and chocolate frosting).

#7- you'll notice a tooth is missing here- he's growing up!!

Brennan loves our cats- he has a tender heart when it comes to them. I have always loved this picture of him and Oreo- Oreo lovin' it???? Um... not so much.

And this shot truly captures Bren. He loves to go to the park and climb and run and swing. That is when he's in his true glory! I can't believe my baby is 9 today. He took offense the other day when I called him my baby. I explained that I wasn't calling him a baby, but that he was my youngest child, and in a mother's eyes, he will always be "my baby." But he is growing up- I've especially noticed it in the last year. He is more self sufficient. He has grown several inches. He is now old enough to participate in camps and summer rec activities. And mom just needs to accept that and celebrate it.

Happy birthday Little Man. Hope your day is GREAT!

How Brennan entertains himself at the numerous games he's drug to...

He's a monkey- always has been- he loves to climb, swing, and twist so the bleachers become his jungle gym.

Burying his foot in the rocks

Creating a stick collection- oh, my bad- they are not sticks, they are "guns" (they had to have just that certain shape to qualify!)

Poor Brennan has grown up on the ball field. He has been to many a game in his life. And most of the time he's pretty good about it, but of course, he gets tired of going to so many games. Thankfully he is a creative little soul and finds ways to entertain himself- and usually it's not by actually watching the game.

It's a beautiful day- I believe I'm going to go out and run here in a minute. Old Settlers is sneaking upon me and I need to get busy!

My precious camera has been in the shop being fixed for two weeks now, and I feel like a part of me is gone. That's how attached I am to that thing! I feel like I'm missing everything! The large lens wasn't focusing on action shots. They said it would probably be 7-14 days, but I'm on day 16 now, and it hasn't even been shipped back to me yet. Brennan's music concert is Friday and his birthday is in one week. I'll have to have something by then- I can't let a birthday go by without a camera! Perish the thought!

Been busy, busy, busy. Games every night this week and tutoring every other minute. Garage sale this weekend at the neighbor's, and I haven't even marked a thing yet. So why am I still sitting on the computer?

this is what I do these days...

SAFE!!!

Lots of ballgames- but I love every minute of it! I just can't believe how big Bradley looks especially in his baseball stuff- many are surprised when they find out he's only 13. He's officially taller than me- I think he said 5'9" at last measurement.

These last few weeks of school are crazy- I feel like I'm running all the time. I'm so ready for summer to arrive. At least it slows down a little bit then.

Our family just received some sad news this week. Gary's cousin Kyle hung himself on Sunday. We're all in total shock and disbelief. My heart just aches for his parents. No one knew there was anything wrong. He was such a laid back guy. He did leave a note, thankfully. It has not been released by the police yet, so the family hasn't seen it. I truly hope that it will give them some peace. I can't imagine what you could go through to bring you to the point of taking your own life. I have been depressed before, but I never did reach that stage. I know many people do, and I know that those feelings are powerful and real. I just can't fathom how it would feel to be so hopeless to think suicide is the only answer, without taking a gut check to imagine how it will affect your family. Lots of questions are unaswered at this point. Lift up a prayer for the Tomes family if you are a praying person. They need it!

Off for another busy day- but at least the sun is shining today! That always helps!

Toodles!

Miss you today Mom...

I am a blog addict. I can't even tell you how many I have in my Google Reader. I think that may come from my affinity for biographies and autobiographies. Those have always been my favorite genres to read. And don't even get me started on the "E's True Hollywood Stories." I could watch those all day. So when the blog craze began a few years ago, I slowly began getting involved. It started with scrapbookers, then some friends began blogging, and the story goes on. Anyway, I came across one of my favorite blogs this week, and she had a post in honor of Mother's Day listing 5 things she learned from her mom. She challenged any of her readers to do the same. So here is my tribute to my mom. I miss her terribly. For those of you who don't know, she passed away from cancer 4 years ago. Today, I dug this photo out from one of her albums- ironically it was taken on Mother's Day 1990.

5 things I learned from my mom...

1) My mom taught me how to write. She was a journaler, a letter writer, and fantastic with the written word. She was my go-to proofreader when I wrote endless papers in high school and college. She appreciated a well -written article or funny story and would often share things she'd clipped out of magazines and newspapers and send them to me.

2) My mom taught me to say "thank you." I remember the last words out of her mouth when I'd head out the door when someone was taking me somewhere. "Be sure to tell them thanks before you get out of the car." For some reason, I felt stupid doing that when I was younger (I don't know why), but I always knew my mom would ask me if I'd said thanks, so that was motivation to do it! My grandma would always send us $10 on our birthdays, and we always had to write a thank you letter or call her after receiving it. Showing gratitude was a gift I can thank my mother for instilling in me.

3) loving and serving the Lord is my #1 priority. She was a prayer warrior for us kids and grandkids. She typed a monthly devotion that she sent out to our entire family for years. She taught our Luther League (youth group) while I was in Jr. High and High School and spent hours researching and planning our Bible lessons and activities. She loved the Lord and taught her children to as well.

4) the love of photos. She was the photographer in our family. We complained endlessly about having to pose in front of every sign and statue on family vacations and taking a million pictures (it seemed) before opening Christmas gifts, but I am so grateful for all of those photos today. I have all of the photo albums she filled over the years, and I cherish them. I am slowly going through those and taking them out of the old magnetic albums and organizing them. Even though she didn't "scrapbook" like I do today, she loved putting together theme albums, with quotes and sayings and did a great one for my graduation and high school years.

5) being a mom is the best job in the world. That was her goal. That was her career path. She wanted to be a mom. She taught piano lessons and played the organ for church and funerals, but her passion was at home...with her family. She put all of her energy into us, our needs, our activities, our lives. Her greatest joy came from the successes of her children and grandchildren. She cared about the little details in our lives. After she died, we found a journal of hers. In it, we found a page for each one of her children, their spouses, and her 14 grandchildren. On it were our personal favorites- food, perfumes, brands of things we liked, etc. She LISTENED as we talked about life, wrote those things down, and made each individual feel special. Her life was about other people. I just wish my boys could have known her better. She would be so happy to see them both playing the piano. She would be thrilled to know that Brennan has a streak going of not missing a word on a final spelling test all year (she helped me study for many a spelling test over the years), she would be so proud of the handsome young man Bradley has become. She would smile to know that they think of her every time they eat a raspberry as it was at Nana and Papa's where they learned to love them. She would cry tears of joy knowing that Bradley chose to be baptized last year and that Brennan has asked Christ into his heart. Mom, you would be so proud of them...just like I am.

My eyes are so full of tears now, I cannot see the screen. For all of you with mothers still here on earth, give them an extra big hug next time you see them and tell them how much they mean to you. I would give anything to be able to do that one more time.

I hope all of you mothers had a wonderful day!

May Day traditions

When I was little I always loved May Day. My best friend Jenny and I would race home from school. We'd usually go to her house because she had all the good craft items! We'd create May baskets from paper cups and pipe cleaners and then fill them with candy. There was nothing more exciting than sneaking up to that neighbor's house, placing the basket on the front steps, ringing the doorbell, and running for your life! Ahh, the thrill!!! And in my memory, it was always a sunny beautiful day!

For a long time, from about high school to when we moved to Carlisle, I didn't give May Day a second thought. But I remember that first year we lived here in Carlisle, the doorbell rang on May 1 (and I probably didn't even realize it was May Day) and there was a little paper cup basket of candy. I don't know who delivered us that first May Day basket here, but it definitely brought back the memories. And once again, made me thankful I lived in a small town. I decided then that we needed to start a May Day tradition of our own. At that time, Bradley was just 3 and Brennan wasn't even around yet! The next year we began delivering May baskets to our neighbors. Bradley loved to deliver them! When Brennan got old enough, he began going along. Well, he didn't quite get the "we don't want to let them know who delivered it thing!" I remember the boys going across the street to our neighbors, Jerry and Karol. They set the basket down, rang the doorbell, and dashed behind their front bushes. When Karol, came to the door, Brennan popped out behind the bush, and excitedly asked, "Do you like the May basket we brought???" Bradley came storming home, in utter disgust, that Brennan had ruined the surprise.

Now Bradley is "too old" to deliver May baskets, but Bren is still going strong. This year has been so busy, and to be honest, May Day crept up on me with no preparation. But as we got into the car after school on May 1, Brennan had plans to come home and put the baskets together! He hadn't forgot! So we got out supplies (good thing I've always got tutoring candy on hand), and he created the baskets and spent the afternoon delivering.

I absolutely LOVE this next picture. Not for the quality by any means, but for the emotion that was captured. I was at my living room window and quickly snapped as he was hopping off of Karol's porch. If you click on it to see it full size, you can catch the excitement on his face! ahh... brings back memories of the good ol' days...

beautiful Saturday morning!

It is a beautiful Saturday morning...sun is shining...temps will be mild...I have a sore throat and a sinus headache...GGRRRRRR!!!!!!!!! Anyone reading this must think we are the sickest bunch you know!! And normally we really aren't, but this year is awful! I used some Zicam this morning and took some Advil Cold and Sinus and hope to be able to get through the day. Brennan is still coughing some, but seems to be improving from his mono, except that he can't play baseball for a few weeks. That is a bummer. One of the side effects of mono is an enlarged spleen, and if he would get hit there, it could burst. So he's benched for a bit. We are SO disappointed about that because he was off to such an awesome start!! The other bad part of that is that another boy in his 2nd grade class was diagnosed with mono at the same time, and he is out of baseball too. He's also on our Pirates team. So we are down two players at the moment and have to borrow a tee baller just to be able to have enough players to play. We were 4-0 until last night. We suffered our first loss. Bren does not do a very good job being a fan instead of playing! I think too much time on his hands is not a good thing. He then messes around and gets into trouble! Ugh...
And on Wednesday when I just got Brennan back to school, Bradley started coughing etc. By Thursday morning he had a low grade fever and was very congested. So my first fear was mono, but after assessing him some more, I thought it was probably another sinus infection. That would be the fourth one since about Christmas. I ran him to the Dr. Thursday afternoon, and sure enough, another sinus infection. So he is on meds again. We set up some allergy testing for him as well since then as this sinus stuff should not continue to happen over and over and over. Something else must be going on there. Bradley also had his first Jr. League game last night. I couldn't get over how big they all looked after watching our little Rookies so much!! Bradley caught for an inning and played shortstop for an inning. He struck out once and hit a nice hit down the first base line, but unfortunately, the 1st baseman made a great catch. His team won easily 11-1. So we spent our evening at the ball field. Today holds a 2:00 game for Bradley in Indianola, a 2:30 game for the Pirates, and Brad is umping a game at 4. Tomorrow Bradley has a 10:45 game for the Cobras, and then he's umping a 1:30 and 3:30 game. Between all that, I am still trying to get the house put back together after the carpet, which has been slow going, and do some general cleaning up. I just found out my neighbor is having a garage sale in 3 weeks, and I am going to try to get rid of some of my "treasures" there! Yippee! Today is National Scrapbooking Day (yes, they really have a day for that!!) and there's lots of fun things going on in my scrap world for that, however I cannot participate in any of that fun with everything else going on.
Maybe I'll post a picture one of these days. I really haven't been taking hardly any pictures lately, which I hate. I'm planning to take the camera to Bradley's ball game today, and since it's nice out, hopefully I'll get a few good ones.
Well I better try to accomplish something. Toodles!