Love this lady...

So I know Mother's Day was over a week ago and I had every intention of writing a blog post about my amazing mom but never sat down to do it. So like the old saying goes "better late than never" right?

She is the one on the far right. Isn't she gorgeous? I mean really... isn't she?

Ok, besides being gorgeous my mom is so many things. I thought I'd list a few of my favorite things about her and hopefully she'll visit this blog soon since I don't tell her these things enough in person. Why is it always easier to write things like this down than say them?

• She is my best friend. She has been since I was a little girl. You know how most girls around the age of twelve start to not want to hang with their mom's, how they don't want to talk to them about anything? That was never me. I always talked to my mom about everything and I would rather hang with her than my friends any day.

• She is the most selfless woman ever. She is always thinking about others before herself. For example... when Derek, my younger brother was in high school, my mom would have hot pockets in the fridge for his friends because she knew they loved them. They weren't even her children but she wanted them to know she cared about them. There are a million other examples of her selflessness but that's one of my favorites.

• She's always up for anything. When we were little, if we wanted to to play in the mud or find snakes she was right there with us and then when we got older and wanted to go toiler papering with our friends she would come along and teach us how to throw the roll the best way. Whose mom does that? Mine! I love her.

• She gets along with everyone and is so super friendly. Without a doubt if you are somewhere in public with my mom she will run into someone she knows. Even if she has only met someone once if she ever happens to see them again she will run right up and say hi to them. I love this about her.

• She is an amazing Grandma. She would do anything for any one of her grandkids (see item number 2 on my list). She makes sure we skype often so we can see Owen and his new little developments and she always sings to him when we're on there. He loves it.

• She loves holidays more than anyone I've ever met. I mean she really really loves holidays. On birthdays she makes such a big deal about them to make sure you feel like you are most special person that was ever born. On every other holiday she always puts together some fun activity for the grandkids, games, treats and all. Oh and in December she always wears this super crazy Christmas sweaters. My personal fav is one she owned that had a Christmas tree with actual christmas lights that lit up on it. Hilarious.

• She is super creative. Ever since answering machines came out (I realize it's now called voicemail) she has made up answering messages to fit the seasons. They are always way funny whether she really means for them to be or not. She'll do these scary voices for Halloween and make up songs for Christmas. It's fantastic.

• She is the eternal optimist. Nothing ever gets her down or if something does, you would never ever know it. She always has a smile on her face.

• Oh, I mentioned this one up top but again, she is beautiful and she doesn't even realize it. She is super humble about it. Once I got into a four car accident in my parent's car when my mom was with me. I ran a red light and three cars hit us. It was horrible but I didn't even get a ticket because the police officers and firemen were too busy flirting with my mom to give me one. When I brought this up to her she was completley clueless to that fact. She was like "oh Britt, no way, they were just nice guys". Cute... and a little naive. Love her.

She is going to hate me for posting that picture. We had been camping for a week so neither of us are looking our most put together but I still love the pic.

Ok... so there are about a million other things I could list here but these are just a few of my favorites. I love this lady!

Cruisin...

When I was in 3rd grade I was riding my bike home from school  when out of the blue Josh Hoffman ran up to me and pushed me off of my bike. While pushing me off, he yelled "This is a side walk, not a side ride!" I of course laid on the ground and cried while Gary Norman yelled at Josh for doing such a thing. I was devastated! I loved me bike. I wasn't crying because I was really hurt, I was crying because my bike might have gotten hurt.

My brother's and I had all gotten bikes that year for Christmas. We all thought there was nothing better than watching RAD on a Friday night and then spending Saturday at the bike track riding our BMX's around (ok, so my brother's had a predator and a black diamond, not BMX's) but mine was a BMX. It was purple and it was perfect. I loved riding it to and from school every day. I loved the wind in my hair and how much faster you could get to school on wheels than you could walking. Have I ever mentioned that I always wanted trampoline walk-ways to get to school? I thought that:
1. It would get you to school a lot quicker and
2. It would make kids love going to school, because who wouldn't want to bounce their way there?

Anyway, sorry... totally off subject. Back to Josh Hoffman... luckily, even though I was devestated that day, I knew that I could continue to ride my bike to school each day because either Gary Norman (thanks Gary!) or one of my brother's would have my back when Josh tried to bully me into only walking on the sidewalk. I don't know what happened after elementary school but somehow my brother's and I grew out of our RAD phase and didn't spend as much time at the bike track.

Fast forward 22 years or so and I've become a biker again! YAY! Ok, so not a real biker that wears spandex and actually get a great workout doing it. I've become more of what you'd call a "cruiser". Two weeks ago Tyler and I decided to jump on craigslist and find ourselves some beach cruisers. We drove fifteen or so miles to the North to a crazy guy's house to check out his collection. I'm not making up that he was crazy... he had a Delorian (yes, from Back to the Future),  naked manequins and Jon Deer tractors in his backyard and he told Tyler and I that a bunch of people on craigslist have been spreading rumors that he is a drug dealer and that he's murdered someone. We agreed when we left that we believed the rumors.

Anyway, we walked in to his backyard and right away I saw the perfect bike sitting there waiting for me. It was like the BMX had been reincarnated into a beach cruiser. Right down to the purple paint. Tyler didn't have as much luck at the crazy guy's house but he found a great bike later that day at an undisclosed location (I'm not about to admit that we purchased something from Walmart... I'm sorry Derek!).

We strapped a bike seat onto the back of my bike for Owen and we were on our way to our first fun filled family bike ride. Well, at least what we thought would be a fun filled bike ride. That lasted for about two seconds until we tried to put the helmet on Owen. He screamed all the way down the street until he figured out how to get his helmet off. For the next five minutes I tried to hold his head still while Tyler tried to put the helmet back on with him screaming the whole time. Super fun right?

Luckily over the course of the last couple of weeks, he's come to realize that putting on the helmet means he gets to go outside. Needless to say, he's formed a great relationship with that helmet now. Anything to get us outside. Doesn't he look so cute in that helmet? I mean really...

We tried to take some family photos of us on the bikes and this was the best we got... hmmmm... we may need some lessons on photography when biking.

Poor Owen... no wonder he hates the helmet. It's covering his sweet little face.














P.S. Josh Hoffman didn't grow up to be a bully... He turned out to be a super nice guy who according to facebook is very happily married. I guess Gary Norman shaped him right up.

The Todd and Carrie Rhodes Family

Don't you just love them? Those of you who know them do, I'm sure of it. Those if you who don't, you would if you knew them. Anyway... they came and spent some time in South Florida with us this past week and it was fantastic. As you can see below, Owen loves them. He misses them immensely.

Last week Todd had a business trip in Orlando and Tyler had to go up to Orlando last week to visit the Del Sol store so Carrie tagged along with Todd and Owen and I tagged along with Tyler so we could all spend some quality time together.
While the men worked, Carrie, Owen and I pretty much stuck around the hotel, played in the pool, went shopping and ate way too much (story of my life)... seriously why do I love food so much?
Oh and took Owen on his first boat ride. He loved it and wasn't bothered at all by the life jacket, at least for the first five minutes but then he pretty much freaked out. Luckily he fell to sleep pretty soon after we left the dock.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Saturday we came back to Ft. Lauderdale so they could hang with us here for a few days. We pretty much spent every minute at the beach. Carrie kept saying that while they were here, they needed to take advantage of the beach so we totally did. We went down to the beach on Saturday night and grilled up some food and played in the water a bit.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
On Sunday we went to church and then went down to Hollywood beach and walked along the boardwalk and Monday we spent hours just laying in the sand. Since Tyler was home working, Todd was honorary dad for the day. Owen couldn't get enough of digging in the sand with him. (Thanks Uncle Todd!)
Have I said that I love my life right now? Because I really really do. Anyway, that night, we headed out on the water taxi and checked out some of the houses and yachts around here. There are some amazing yachts and houses, our water taxi guide told us one of the yachts was Brad Pitt's. We believed him for about two seconds before we noticed a giant British flag flying high on the one end of the boat. Brad Pitt's not British right?
On Tuesday we went to Shark Valley... I was so bummed because when my mom was here, we saw so many alligators, turtles and birds just out and about enjoying the day but when we took Todd and Carrie there, because of the heat, the animals loved the water. We only saw a few alligators and they were all water bound but this guy came out to say hi...

Hello Turtle.

 It was still great. We got some exercise on the bikes, which was needed. You can't see Owen because he's riding on the back of my bike. If you look closely though, you can see his little legs below the bike seat.

That night we decided to head down to South Beach and get some dinner (shocker right? another beach scene? We really couldn't get enough).

Wednesday Carrie and Todd were heading out so we didn't have time for the beach, otherwise I'm sure we would have found our way down there. Instead the boys headed over to Bass Pro Shop for lunch while Carrie and I spent some time at Sephora... We love that place.

Once we got home, it was time to say goodbye. I was so bummed... I hate when people have to leave. Why can't every one of our friends and family just move down here? Then we could hang at the beach all day every day. Do you think we would ever get sick of it? I know I wouldn't... 

The Fun Ship

I guess all Carnival cruises are called the "Fun Ship" but we just got back from a four dayer and it truly was on a "fun ship".
For work, Tyler was going on a cruise to visit Key West and Cozumel so Owen and I decided to tag along so we could see the sights and not miss out on Tyler time at night. I won't bore you with what we did every minute of the cruise because honestly it was mostly filled with the swimming time at the kiddy pool  and napping but I do want to give a few highlights of our favorite things from the cruise.
The first thing I saw when I got off the ship in Key West was this:

What is this?  Also, if you're thinking that is a real guy underneath the sculpture, you're wrong. It's part of the sculpture. Seriously... what is this? It's so weird. I couldn't stop staring at it. Anyway, besides staring at this sculpture, Owen and I walked around, ate some amazing key lime fudge and saw a guy riding his Harley with  no shoes, no shirt, his gray hair all the way down his back and a parakeet standing on his head. I am so sad I didn't get a picture of him. It was awesome.

When we got back from Key West, it was formal night on the ship... Tyler and I had no idea there would be a formal night on a 4 day trip so we didn't pack anything for the dinner. This is what Tyler ended up wearing:

Tyler borrowed some super nice pants from some guy he knew on the ship and then rocked his reebok classics as his formal shoes and his guayabera as his formal shirt. Sexy...

Our next stop was Cozumel. We were really excited to hit Cozumel because although Tyler was going to be working most of the time, he was also going to get to see a lot of his old friends while we were there. While he was in the store, Owen and I walked around in the rain and played with just about every morraca Owen saw (it was his favorite part of Cozumel by far). That night we went to dinner at one of Tyler's favorite restaurants with some of his friends, Oscar, Inair and their kids. It was so fun to be able to hang out with them for a while. Oh... Owen's other favorite thing about Cozumel was guacamole:

The last day of the cruise was the day at sea. All day, we spent at the kids pool and napping. While at the kiddie pool there was a hairiest chest contest going on. There was a guy named Alvin in the contest who had to be like 90 years old. I don't think he had one hair on his chest but he won by a landslide because he was so into it. The ladies were loving him. I'm way sad we didn't get a picture from the front but here is one of him from the back. Also, here is a picture of him in the thick of it with the ladies. You can't even see Alvin, except for his curly gray head in the middle of all of these women dancing up on him...

That night we were able to go to one of the shows on the ship. Second in line to the nude dancing sculpture in Key West, it was the most graphic thing about the trip. I've never seen so many women's butts and crotches in my life. I guess it was in the name of art but Tyler and I just thought it was weird. Owen thought it was hilarious and laughed and clapped throught the whole show.

Oh, remember how I said we did nothing but play at the kiddie pool and nap? I was wrong, we also ate... too much. By the end of the trip, Tyler and I had a combined weight gain of ten pounds. It was fantastic.

Everybody wear your life jackets tomorrow...

I'm a crier. I've always been a crier. The first time I realized this about myself was when I was in first grade and my teacher Mrs. Dickerson sent me home in tears.

I had always loved Mrs. Dickerson, she would hug you when you left for the day and they were the best hugs. Now that I am older and think about her, I can't quite figure out why I loved her, even with the great hugs. She wasn't what you would call a nice woman.  For example... My mom would let me dress myself in first grade and I just HAD to wear my "Brittany" legwarmers with everything. Side note: I call them "Brittany" legwarmers because they were pink and maroon and said Brittany all over them. Anyway, I wore them with jeans, skirts, shorts, you name it. I loved my "Brittany" leg warmers. Once while wearing my favorite leg warmers, Mrs. Dickerson told me that I would be a really pretty girl if I just didn't wear those leg warmers with everything. That's just one example of when Mrs. Dickerson said something mean to me. That wasn't even the time she made me cry. I actually didn't care what she had to say about my leg warmers, I loved them and I thought they went with everything I wore. Kind of like how I feel about hoop earrings now.

I'm sure I've told the few of you that read my blog about the time that Mrs. Dickerson did make me cry. But you're going to have to hear it (or in this case, read it again for the sake of this post).
One day I was in class and I was so happy I couldn't contain myself, I started whisteling. Mrs. Dickerson didn't like it and told me to stop. I was a good girl at that age and I listened to my teachers so I immediately stopped whisteling. Well, the little boy in back of me must have had it out for me for some reason, maybe he hated my "Brittany" leg warmers too, I don't know... anyway, as soon as I stopped whisteling, he started whisteling. Mrs. Dickerson assumed it was me. She told me to go stand in the corner for not obeying her. I tried to plead with her and tell her that it wasn't me that was whisteling but she didn't want to hear it so I went and stood in the corner and cried and cried. At the end of that day when the class was standing in line waiting for the bell to ring Mrs. Dickerson says to the class "Attention everyone. Please bring your life jackets tomorrow because Brittany is going to be crying again." Well obviously this hurt my feelings and I started to cry again. I didn't want to cry, I hated that I cried so easily but I couldn't help it, it was just the way I was made.

It's been 24 years since that day but I'm still just as much of a crier now as I was then. The past two days I've cried three times.  One time it was over Gilmore Girls. There was a sweet moment between Luke and Lorelei and it touched my heart and brought a tear of my eye. Then, yesterday afternoon, I turned on the TV and an old episode of Beverly Hills 90210 (yes, this is one of my guilty pleasures) was on and it was Mother's Day and Clare was looking at a photo book of her mom and that set me off again, just thinking about Mother's and how great they are. Then this morning, Troop Beverly Hills was on the Family channel (How embarassed should I be right now admitting all in one post that I don't change the channel when Gilmore Girls, 90210 or Troop Beverly Hills is on?) anyway, it was the end of the movie and the troop had just won the Wilderness Girls Trophy and Shelley Long's daughters says "I wish Dad were here" and Shelley agrees and then there he is. Guess what happened then? I got choked up. Over Coach and Shelley Long reuniting. Why?

Anyway, fast forward to this afternoon, I was in line at Target and making polite conversation with the lady checking us out when she starts telling me how it's been a really tough couple of weeks and proceeds to tell me that her father passed away last week, that she just got back from his funeral and then yesterday she found out that her step mother passed away. She started crying while she was telling me this. I stood there, my heart breaking for this poor woman and yet I could not will my tears to come.

So I ask you... why is it that when I don't want to cry, the tears come anyway but when I want nothing more than to cry in order to show some sypathy those tear ducts won't cooperate with me?

Note to self...

When you don't hear Owen anymore... something messy is happening.

This morning while Tyler and I were getting ready for church, Owen was in our bathroom busy getting prettied up himself with my makeup. This is the aftermath of a child who found his mommy's MAC paint pot (eyeliner). One might wonder how Owen could figure out how to unscrew the top off of the makeup bottle and the only exlpanation I can come up with is that he is a genius. A messy little genius.

Baby O isn't such a baby anymore...

He turned one today! Can you believe it?
A couple of Warnings: One: You are in for a long read. I just couldn't shorten this post. Sorry! Second: In the text of this post I will be using a lot of clichés. One of them being, I can't believe how time flies! It's true, this past year has gone by way too quickly. Another cliché... It seems like just yesterday he was a little seven pound peanut in our arms in the hospital. In the blink of an eye (yes, another), a year has gone by.
We didn't want to throw a huge party but if you know me at all you know Birthdays are a BIG DEAL! We wanted to make sure and incorporate both sets of family traditions so first thing this morning as soon as Owen woke up we went in to sing Happy Birthday to the little guy and give him a few of his presents. Then thanks to my cute, crafty sis-in-law, we put out the traditional Rhodes Birthday table runner (thanks Darcy!) and he got breakfast on his special red plate (again thanks to Darc).

We headed off to the beach for the afternoon with some friends (Is this more Owen's Birthday wish or mine? Let's be honest, probably mine). But we for sure had a good time in the sun.

For dinner, I decided to make Owen one of his favorite meals, spaghetti (ok, so he never actually said it was one of his favorites but you should see how he downs those noodles when they are in front of him, you'll see proof of that below).

I decided to make Owen his own person Elmo Birthday cake and it turned out to look nothing like Elmo. We had some friends over and one of the boys who was here asked me why the Elmo cake looked nothing like Elmo. So funny. I'm bummed I didn't get a picture so you could tell me if there was another Muppet that you know of that the cake looked more like so I could have acted as though I meant to make the cake look that way. Oh well... Anyway, we let him go to town on the Birthday cake and he was in heaven (Pictured below). As far as first birthdays go, I think it was a success. By the way, I'd like to give a shout out to those who called, sent gifts, cards, etc. Thanks so much for your thoughtfulness!

In honor of Owen's first Birthday, I wanted to write down some of our favorite things about the little guy and what he's doing at this stage in his life...

1. He dances every time he hears music. Whether it's a hymn at church or a song on my IPOD, he starts bouncing up and down and dances along or he reaches for you, grabs your thumb and starts bouncing on your hip until you dance along with him.
2. He sings along to music. He does this cute high pitched singing thing that sounds more like a dog howling than a song but nothing is better than that sound.
3. When you ask him what a fish does, he makes his own version of a fish face. He also makes a quacking sound when you ask what a duck says... cute.
4. He's walking everywhere. If he is walking to you, once he gets to you, he climbs up in your arms, looks around and starts clapping for himself.
5. I've already blogged about this but he loves to push anything he can around.
6. He loves unplugging things and plugging them back in. Dangerous right? Don't worry, if he goes to an actual electrical outlet to unplug something, we pull him away.
7. He is constantly making this face where he scrunches his nose. He does it to be funny, he does it when he fake cries and he does when he is laughing really hard. I can't get enough of it.
8. When Tyler fake laughs at him, he laughs back... really really hard. They can keep this going for seriously twenty minutes without ever getting sick of it.
9. He loves to be chased. He will crawl super fast in front of you and then look back to make sure you're chasing him. He loves even more being caught and tickled.
10. He loves being outside. He's been like this since he was a baby baby. Like if he was fussy when he was little and you couldn't get him to stop, walking outdoors worked immediately to calm him down. Now that he's older, he will go stand at the door and just wait for you to take him outside. Once outside, he wants to eat every rock that gets in his way.
11. We probably won't think this is funny for long but he shakes his head no when he knows he is doing something wrong. Like when he is trying to eat rocks, he knows he shouldn't so he'll put it in his mouth and then look at you and shake his head from side to side to let you know that it's a no no.
12. He loves nothing more than a soft blanket. If there is one anywhere in his vicinity, he will go over to it and roll around in it, mash his face into it or just cuddle with it. While he's cuddling in his soft blanket he loves to have his back tickled. One of my favorite things in the world right now is in the morning when he first wakes up, we go into the living room, get out our big soft blanket and he cuddles up in the blanket while I tickle his back.
My dad and I always joke back and forth about me thinking Owen is the smartest, best looking, most perfect child that has ever been born. I realize that he probably isn't really the smartest, best looking or most perfect child ever, but to me and Tyler, he is. I wish we could bottle up this time, or stop time just as it is right now, or... ok, enough clichés for now. Seriously though, I can't imagine that Owen could be more fun than he is right now. I'm sure I'll be saying this with every stage of his life but right now, this is my favorite stage. Oh, we love this kid... Happy Birthday baby boy!