Happy Birthday Connor!

Connor turned 1 on March 1st.  Seems like it was just yesterday that he was born!  What a difference a year makes:

We celebrated his special day with dinner with the Grammy & Grampa, followed by cake, with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle David, Madeline, Lydia and Margo joining us.  He opened a few gifts too, with lots of help from big brother Brayden.

 

We had a larger family birthday party on Saturday evening. Brayden was so excited for Connor's party...he talked about it all week!

 

 Beautiful and delicious cakes made by Grammy

 

Mmmm, this cake is good!  The small bit of icing on his forehead was about as messy as he got with his smash cake.  He really didn't eat too much of it.

 Opening presents.  As you can see, everyone wanted to help!

 In his new ride from mommy & daddy. 

Can't believe it's been a year already!  Birthdays are always so bittersweet to me, especially the 1st birthday.  The past year has been one to remember, for sure.  Going from one child to two was a major change that no one could have prepared us for, but we've loved every minute of it (minus the sleepless nights)  ;)  Connor has been such a blessing to our family and I love watching the relationship between he and Brayden.  They truly love each other to pieces!  Looking forward to seeing what the future holds for us.  Happy Birthday, sweet Connor!  We Love You!

Chloe

We have a new family member, Chloe.  She is a beautiful dark brown with white spots hound/lab mix rescue dog we got back in mid January from Diamonds in the Ruff Canine group in Goldsboro.  Chloe is a great dog overall, but she has still got A LOT of puppy in her, which we weren't really ready for!  Sometimes I feel like we adopted another baby....I am constantly taking something out of Chloe's mouth, then Connor's, back to Chloe, etc.  The boys love her and she is really good with them for the most part...her biggest downfall is the chewing on their toys, shoes, papers...pretty much anything lying around, which is alot of stuff in this house!  She'll eventually outgrow that, right?  It seems strange having a dog around again, as it has been just over a year ago that we lost Callie.  Chloe could never take Callie's place, but she is definitely proving to be just as much of a handful as Callie was in the beginning (and continued to be throughout her life).

 

 The boys love her crate...Chloe, not so much!

 

Let it Snow!

We went to upstate NY to visit Greg's extended family after Christmas.  Our original plans were to drive halfway on the 26th, but a big snowstorm forced us to leave a day early in a hurry.  After enjoying Christmas with my family Christmas Day, we made a quick decision to leave that afternoon to beat the storm.  We packed up everything and left within an hour...it was chaotic to say the least!  We didn't even stop to think about everything being closed on Christmas Day, so we ended up eating some "delicious" gas station goodies for dinner...something to remember for sure :)  We spent 4 days visiting with everyone and got to play in ALOT of snow.  Brayden had a blast sledding, making snow angels and throwing snowballs (Connor missed out on all the snow fun)  Below are some pictures from our trip:

Connor with his Great Gramma Sharkey, who celebrated her 80th birthday while we were there!

Brayden in the snow

Clearing a path to the sledding hill with Brian

Sledding!

Snow angel

 That's a lot of snow!!

Brayden and Luciana

Making a snow igloo with Uncle Skip

Cousins

Christmas 2012

Didn't realize it had been so long since I posted!  We had a great, but busy holiday season.  Lots of fun holiday festivities to attend, shopping for Christmas gifts and lots of Christmas season / year end things at work for mommy to do!  I've learned that "work from home mom" are four words that don't really belong together when there are 2 children at home!  It was almost impossible at times, but we survived and stayed mostly sane ; )  Below are some pictures from our Christmas happenings...

Meadow Lights carousel with Tanner

Preschool Christmas program

Meeting Santa at preschool...love Connor's reaction!  Brayden was really excited, although you couldn't tell from this picture!

Someone loved the Christmas tree!  

Meeting Santa again at breakfast with Santa at our church...Connor still wasn't a fan!

Pajama day at preschool Christmas party

Reading the Polar Express at preschool

Brayden's edible Christmas tree...it looked so yummy, but he wouldn't let us eat it!

Final meeting with Santa Claus on Christmas Eve with Caroline...had to get in those last minute requests!

Christmas Eve at church.  We were the Holy Family, with the addition of a shepherd boy :)

All ready for bed on Christmas Eve.  I loved their Christmas PJs!

The boys checking out their gifts from Santa Christmas morning

All the Grimes' cousins at my parents on Christmas day