This past Saturday, my husband and I participated in an indoor cycling event to raise money for research for rare cancers.  We both rode for one hour in honor of our loved ones who have battled cancer.  My husband’s friend and wife started this event called, Cycle for Survival, after she was diagnosed with cancer.  She passed away about a year ago and since then they have raised millions of dollars and have held events all over the country.  I was truly honored to be a part of such an amazing event!

Thank you SO much to all of you who donated!  Your support means so much to me.  A big thanks to my parents, Jojo and Popeese, Kim, Bill, Cindy, Uncle Glenn, Shana and Jason, Julie and Jerry, and Paula for your donations.  We did it!

Here is a picture of my husband and I BEFORE the ride…looking fabulous!  And some pictures of the boys wearing their super cool Cycle for Survival sunglasses.

It was a fun event for a great cause and I’m proud to say that I kicked some butt on that bike!

The boys are now fast asleep after a weekend filled with fun activities and I’ll be there very soon.  Rylan and I had fun making Valentines for his classmates.  This year we bought bubble wands from Oriental Trading Company and had tags made by Mary Had a Little Party that said, “You Blow Me Away.  Love, Rylan”

Sunday was Finn’s big birthday bash!  Our little boy is turning 2…hard to believe! I bought tickets for the children’s show called Honk!  I was surprised that we were able to get front row seats for a decent price with such short notice, but was happy the boys would have a good seat for their first show.  I gave the tickets to my husband and left them to find the seats so that I could run to the ladies room.  When I returned and entered the theatre, I didn’t see anyone I recognized in the front row and happened to look up and saw my husband in the very last row shaking his head in disappointment.  Oh crap, I must have looked at the seating chart upside down!  Get it together, Brandi!  My front row seats were actually in the very last row!  UGH!  Only me!  My husband was not surprised and just laughed at me while I sat down and tried to explain myself.  We actually ended up having a great view from way up there and the boys did fairly well considering the show was 75 minutes long.  Rylan, however, walked out looking very disappointed and when we asked him what was wrong he said, “I’m frustrated!”  Why are you frustrated, Rylan?  ”Because!  That was the WORST SHOW EVER!”  Well, well, our little four year old has a mind of his own now.  It was too cute.

After the show we took the boys to the largest Curious George store in Harvard Square, Cambridge (Heaven for Finn) and Finn picked out some books and a small curious george, but refused to get his picture taken with big George.  So I did…

Then we had a fun birthday dinner at The Border, a Mexican restaurant in Cambridge and went home and had the most delicious cupcakes from Sweet…after Finn blew out his candles.  ;-)

Happy birthday, sweet boy!

Have you ever had a day that starts out really bad and just when you think things couldn’t get any worse…they do?

I am having one of those days.  I am supposed to be napping, but just as I put Finn down and turned on my calming music, the UPS guy knocked on my door with a package.  And, just as I brought the package in and fell back onto the couch, the mailman dropped our mail off at our door with a big thud that startles me every time.  So, I guess napping is not in the cards for me today.

My day started at 3 o’clock this morning with my sweet boy Finn screaming his bloody heart out.  He never gets up in the middle of the night but when his screams did not subside, I slowly walked down the stairs and into his room.  No fever.  Clean diaper.  What on earth are you doing up at this hour???  A sippy cup of milk and an hour later, he was wide awake…laughing and playing with my hair.  I put the bugger back in bed and tried to let him cry it out a little until my husband came down.  Do you want me to help?  Ugh, no…go back to sleep.  

4:30pm…Finn is wide awake and ready to play.  He refuses to sleep and I’m too tired to deal and don’t want to wake Rylan and my husband.  Finn and I head downstairs and play legos until my husband comes walking down the stairs.  He can’t sleep so relieves me of my duties and I nap for an hour before Rylan comes marching down the stairs.  And that’s when I pray, Dear God, please, please, pleeeeease help my boys fall back asleep.  Pleeease.  It doesn’t work.  How silly am I for thinking that it would actually work this time??

So, that was the start of my day.  All the plans I had went right out the window, except I was still able to go to the gym.  Thank God!!

This afternoon:  Finn is by now VERY tired and so sweet I could just pinch his cheeks!  Have you ever seen a 2 year old throw himself against a classroom door over and over again while screaming at the top of his lungs?  Ha!  It was quite the scene at Rylan’s school playground today before drop off.   So cute.

Then Finn and I drive home.  We are SO close to getting in our beds and taking a long nap…making up for the sleep we missed this morning.  Wouldn’t you know it, it’s street cleaning day and there isn’t a parking spot in sight AND they extended the street cleaning schedule to run through the WHOLE month of December.  Ugh!  I could just scream…but I didn’t…because Finn was doing it for me!  Imagine…40 minutes (NO exaggeration) of driving around your beautiful neighborhood with a screaming child who is trying to claw his way out of his carseat and won’t stop until he does.  PAINFUL!  Then, I managed to find the street cleaner, followed him, parked on the side of the street he just cleaned, pulled Finn out of the car and was yelled at by a woman pointing out that I was parked in the wrong direction on a one way street AND that my car would be towed even though they just cleaned the streets!  I put Finn back in the car…who was really not happy with this and just drove to our house, put the blinkers on and ran my little guy up to his room.  Fast asleep.  Phew.

The streets are now clean.  My car is parked.  Waiting for the next obstacle that awaits me.

I’ve come a long way, baby!  ;-)  This is me…standing very close to “Tick Central”…and yes, that’s a REAL smile.  We were at my aunt and uncle’s house for Thanksgiving and they are surrounded by trees and…deer.  If it wasn’t 30 degrees and I wasn’t covered head-to-toe, this would be a much different picture…probably taken on the porch with me hyperventilating and yelling at my kids to stay off the grass.  My how things have changed.  Two years ago, I was four-wheeling through those trees with my uncle and cousins.  I told my husband that the Dean family would not be participating in that activity this year.  No way!

My aunt made the most amazing Thanksgiving dinner and it was so nice to be home with family.  The boys had so much fun running in the yard, since running wildly through the streets of Boston just isn’t the same.  I took some great pictures of the boys.

Rylan is my little man now.  He has grown so much in the past year.

Finn really needs a dog.  He could have played fetch for hours.He loved this dog.  So sweet.

My mother sent us home with plenty of leftovers…enough to hold us over for the week.  She even made the most delicious gluten free pumpkin pie.  YUM!

When we arrived in Boston, my husband thought it would be a great idea to make Christmas cookies the following day.  I have to admit, I attempted to make Christmas cookies last year with a friend who thought it would be a great idea and I spent three hours cooking, cutting, frosting and cleaning while she drank through two bottles of my wine.  I was not looking forward to doing that again and was tempted to find some dough that was already made and rolled out.  But, the boys insisted and I caved.  I have to say, it was the best time I have ever had baking cookies.  Although it’s messy, baking with your kids can be quite amusing and fun.  Rylan was in heaven and said several times, “this is the BEST!”, “I am having so much fun!  Why don’t we ever do this?”, “I LOVE this!!”, “Making cookies is my favorite!”

I also learned that my husband is what you would call a “competitive baker”.  He showed us all how to frost the candy cane cookies and separated his batch (the BEST cookies) from the rest and admired them from a distance.  He actually said, “What fun is baking if you’re not competing?”  Not sure where his SUPER baking skills came from, but since he’s SO good, I suggested he make another batch for our family members for Christmas while I sit back and drink through two bottles of wine.

That is the look of a VERY serious baker/christmas cookie designer.  My husband.
The finished product.  Candy canes pictured are NOT my husbands.  ;-)

And, after all that we took Rylan to the musical, “The Grinch That Stole Christmas” and managed to finish most of our Christmas shopping that evening AND I had the energy to do all of it without crashing.  Amen!

Rylan’s friend had her birthday party at Honey Pot Hill Farms on Sunday, so we spent the day picking apples.  The weather was beautiful and the orchard was packed, but we managed to have a lot of fun.  We took a hayride around the orchard and were dropped off in front of the Macintosh trees.  We filled our bags full and made apple crisp for Chris’ birthday when we got home.  Here are some pictures from our day at the farm: