weekly happenings from britton-leyton land

A few funnies from the past week that I wanted to write down before I forget:

1. After school one day, we were sitting in my Mom's office chatting when Britton announced he needed to potty. There's a restroom right across the hall, so he went in there and asked me to come (for some reason lately he's needed my presence in the bathroom with him). After he finished his business, he reached for the toilet paper which was just resting on the wheelchair rail (not on the little paper dispenser roll thingy). When he pulled, the entire roll went into the toilet.

EWWWWWWWWWWW.


So here we go again with my germaphobic tendencies. As I'm standing in the doorway talking to my Mom about where the rubber gloves were because I WAS NOT reaching my hand into the germ infested PUBLIC toilet without some serious protection, Britton starts saying "here Mommy! I got it!" I turn around and Britton is holding up the soaking wet toilet paper roll he had just fished from the toilet with his bare hands. You know where this is going, right? Subsequently, (while I was actually somewhat grateful that Britton handled the retrieval process) I made Britton wash his hands no less than 18 times and use half a bottle of hand-sanitizer. You know, just to be safe. :)

2. If you know me at all, you know I have serious love for the Denver Broncos. Obsession really. I wanted Terrell Davis at my wedding. Which is a whole other story because PJ actually saw my beloved TD in an airport a few years ago and told him as much. TD said, and I quote, "Oh man, you don't want me at your wedding." Oh, but yes I do (did)! It's not that I am attracted to TD in some form - I'm just wowed by what he did on the football field. I mean seriously - how can you like football and not think he's a stud? I'm in awe really. My Dad has told me for all of my 30 years that the Broncos are the best. I've been to a number of games (Thanks Dad!), including MNF and I WILL go again. I'm a face-painting (yeah, I'm that fan), Bronco-loving fool. Seriously. Ok, moving on... Anyway, I've been telling both boys since the days they were born that we love the Denver Broncos. They are the one and only team in the NFL they are allowed to cheer for. And if they want to play football someday, great. But it will be for the Broncos or Mommy can't cheer for them. :) They each have a small wardrobe made up of Bronco gear. And while PJ's family has feebly tried to bring the Dallas Cowgirls into the picture (sorry Garcia's - no offense), let me just say all efforts have failed. Any clothing with so much as a Dallas Cowboy logo on it still has tags attached (and is in the attic). So, now that you have the full picture of my complete obsession, here's the story. We are in the car the other day and Britton and I have the following conversation, completely out of the blue:


BK: "Mommy, we love the Broncos."
Me: "Yep, that's right. They're the best." (Even though this year isn't exactly living up to my standards)
BK: "So in the car yesterday Daddy told me that we like the Dallas Cowboys better than the Broncos."
Me: Smoke coming out my ears. No words - I'm seeing red at this point.
BK: "But I told him that the Broncos are the best. I don't like those cowboys."


That's my boy. :)

MNF 9/05 - The Broncos beat the snot out of the Chiefs, and I was there to witness the beatdown. :)Britton sporting his first Bronco outfit years ago...

see jane run!

I know this is a blog for my boys, but I had to throw this in... This past Sunday, I competed in the Route 66 marathon relay with several friends. We had such a fun time going from relay exchange to the next (I didn't get to go to as many as I would have liked due to timing, etc) and cheering each other on. We have been planning this since like May - seriously. So we've said that we were not "in it to win it," but "in it to finish." Ha. I should have known better. It just so happened that the 4 other women on this relay team with me are every bit as competitive as I am (which is pretty darn competitive - I DON'T LIKE TO LOSE. EVER.) So we all had trained at a fairly similar pace - about 9-10 min - although we hadn't all trained together. We estimated our times beforehand so we would all know when to be at the relay exchange stations, and we all overestimated. We all hauled booty!

So are you ready for the results? Wait for it....
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Our pace was pretty darn fast if you as me - 8:51!!! And we finished with an overall time at just a little over 3 hours, 51 minutes (about 10-15 min faster than we thought we would finish). And get this - we finished THIRD!!! Wow! We didn't stay for the award session because we figured there was no way we placed. But we were like 30 seconds behind the second place team, and 2 1/2 minutes behind first! I couldn't be more proud of us. :) (And yet the competitive side of me keeps saying "if I'd only run a little faster we could have had second")

As for me, I ran the last leg of the relay, which happened to be the hilly section. It went up through Woodward Park (which I'm now referring to as Mt. Woodward - it almost did me in), past St. John's and up Cherry Street. My pace was at just over 8.5 minutes - which is pretty fast for me, especially on hills (I know, slow compared to a lot of people, but good for me)! The funny thing was that I crossed before any of my team (or husband) got to the finish line to see me finish! I couldn't find them when I finished, and finally found them 20 minutes later - staring down the street looking for me to come running around the corner. I had a good laugh when I came up behind them!

So here's a pic - this is after the race, which is why we all look so lovely, and my face is bright red. We had some really cute pink fleece with our team name on the back - "See Jane Run..." Looking forward to next year girls (when we will for sure be "in it to win it!")!!! From left to right - Kristy, Courtney, Kizzy, me, Rachel.

top 10 reasons I love being mommy

I realize we haven't been around much (we missed several birthday parties, church, etc, thanks to numerous factors over the last month), so what better way to catch everyone up than to steal a little bit from Letterman (whom I find absolutely hysterical - gotta love dry humor) and give the "Garcia Top 10 happenings" from the last month:

10. Leyton eating baby food! We finally started veggies this month, and I can report they are a hit. I can't shovel them in fast enough for him most days, and I love, love, love the funny faces he makes with each new veggie "discovery." He gets his arms moving so much he occasionally hits the spoon or my hand as I'm trying to get the food in his mouth which in turn catapults it to somewhere else - me, my face, his face, the floor, dog, Britton, you get the idea. I'm getting very efficient at scraping carrots, green beans, and peas from most surfaces in my kitchen.


9. Britton learning something new every day. In the last week: he's ridden his tricycle around the block (with Daddy of course), successfully navigating curbs, sidewalks, and driveways to perfection. He learned how to UNBUTTON his shirt! (Seriously!?! I struggle sometimes with this one even) He learned how to ride his cousin's "big boy" bike with training wheels (good thing "Santa" already had this one on the list). And one I'm super proud of - he hasn't had an accident at night in almost 3 weeks! He's been potty-trained for almost a year, but nights were harder. He's a very deep sleeper, and still had some trouble keeping dry at night. One day he decided he could do it, and by gosh, he did. This mommy couldn't be more proud of my little man.

8. Leyton = Daddy's boy. He still only says "Da Da" and says it constantly when PJ's around. He loves for PJ to just carry him around, and loves the games PJ plays with him. I really enjoy watching them together!

7. The pumpkin patch! We went a few weeks back and the boys had an absolute blast. Leyton enjoyed taking in all the colors and happenings around him, and really loved getting to touch all the new and different textures. (Hay was not his favorite, but he loved the smooth pumpkins!) Britton wanted to go "ONE MORE TIME, DADDY!" through the haunted house, and enjoyed being "king of the pumpkins." He fed the animals as well, although he wasn't a big fan of the goat licking his hand. :)

6. Britton and his sheer excitement for carving the jack-o-lantern. PJ and I carved them a few times before we had kids, and it was never PJ's favorite activity - in fact, I'm pretty sure he did it just so he didn't have to listen to me whine insistently. One year, he decided he could "power" through and decided to use his drill to carve. If you were lucky enough to witness the drilled jack-o-lantern, you know it was quite a sight. ANYWAY, point here is that he really got into carving it with Britton. He bought a special kit, and they spent forever hollowing it out and carving. It turned out really good, and Britton was so proud of their work.

5. Making Halloween cookies with Britton. Ok, I totally cheated here, but Britton will never know the difference. I planned to carry our Christmas tradition into Halloween and make homemade sugar cookies and let Britton frost and sprinkle (he loves doing this at Christmas), but I just ran out of time. PJ had been begging for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies (apparently Kristy had made a batch, and PJ was dying for some after he had one over there), and I decided that would fit the "Halloween Cookie" bill nicely. Britton was quite the assistant, and really enjoyed the taste-testing. :)

4. Leyton and the big ol' belly. Ok, I know this is stupid, but we have conversations about Leyton's belly several times a day. We had trouble getting Britton to gain weight (still do actually), so to have such a chunky monkey in Leyton, we are more than thrilled. I was cracking up when I put a new shirt on him this morning - it's sized 6-12 months (mind you, he's 7 months, so we are well within the range here), and I could BARELY get it over his gut. The sleeves are a little long, and the shirt itself is plenty long, but it's so tight around the middle it resembles a leotard. PJ finally just pulled the front up and left his "milk" belly hanging out. We could not stop laughing. I love it, I love it, I love it. (And I also love to kiss the super cute belly)

Note the rolls on his tummy - and yes, I cropped the picture - this is a G rated blog people!

3. Leyton's new TEETH! That's right, we have finally departed the land of the toothless. Britton had teeth at 5 months, so I was getting rather concerned when Leyton hit the 7 month mark and still no sign of pearly whites. They finally showed this past weekend, and we were so excited. Leyton on the other hand, not so happy. But with the help of a little Tylenol, he's beginning to see the light. :) I don't have any pictures of the new developments yet, but I'm working on it... He's not real cooperative with open mouth pictures.

2. The return of Calcifer (I'm sure I'm butchering the spelling here, but it's pronounced "Cal-si-fer"). This is our fire in our fireplace. Last year Britton was suddenly scared of the fire, and PJ and Britton had just watched a movie called something like "Hal and the moving castle" where the fire in the fireplace was alive and was named this... Anyway, PJ told Britton that was our calcifer and that seemed to calm Britton's nerves. He knows not to get close, and requests "Calcifer" at least once a week - even in the heat of summer (obviously he doesn't win that one).

1. Britton is still a snuggler. Even though I swear he gets bigger every single day, he's still my baby and I tell him that daily. He will still crawl in my lap and read a book or watch t.v. for a few minutes. I know he won't do that for much longer and I treasure every minute (even when I know I have 80 million things to do and no time to sit).

boo!

Well, I'm behind as usual. Both boys have been sick in the last few weeks, PJ and I played in a soccer tournament, and we all went to Dallas for a wedding a few weekends back. Needless to say, I have some catching up to do... Anyway, I'll start with Halloween and work my way back. I'll eventually get caught up - maybe when the kids are in college.

For Halloween this year, my Mom and I (ok, mostly my Mom) had a lot of fun making the costumes for the boys. Britton said months ago he wanted to be a wizard, so we tried to come up with something for Leyton that sort of went with that... PJ suggested an owl, like in Harry Potter, and we ran with it. Carisa and Ella were nice enough to loan us the owl costume Ella wore a few years ago, however we had to make a new hat - apparently Leyton has two brains in there as he has a rather large noggin. :) So here's a few (ok, ok, a bunch) of pics from Friday night...

Grandpa and the little hootie:


Wizard BK trick-or-treating at GiGi's house:

The magic boys:

Britton, Nina Kristy, and the cutest peanut I've ever seen - sweet Mark Thomas:

Mommy and the wizard after he finished gathering the loot (he seriously came home with a ton of stuff. Not only candy, but money?!? Someone gave him a few bucks along the way. Must have been for the stellar magic tricks he was performing. If you were lucky, he didn't smack you in the head with his wand while casting his spells)...

The hippie (AKA: Grandma Cindy, who scared the life out of Leyton with her new look):

The handsomest little wizard I know...