Christmas

Christmas with Brayden was so much fun this year....he was very into it more so than ever before.  Greg's parents came to spend Christmas Eve with us.  After going to the children's service at our church, we came back for dinner and presents.  Brayden was very excited about opening gifts!  His favorite by far was the new kids camera from Grammy and Grampa.  It has barely left his side since he got it and there are already a ton of pictures on the camera (I hope he'll leave mine alone now!)  After opening gifts, Brayden spread out some reindeer food for Santa's reindeer so they could find the house and we left cookies & milk out for Santa. Here are a few pictures:

On Sunday morning, we woke up to find that Santa had come!  Brayden was very excited about his gifts, especially the Spiderman webshooter he had been asking for.  It was the first thing he spotted!  He was also very excited that Santa had left a new bed for Callie.  Santa also brought an art easel with accessories, superhero cape & mask, hot wheels cars & wall track, games, etc.  Brayden went from one thing to the other.  Greg & I loved watching the expressions & excitement on his face....Greg said he had woken up at 5:00 and had trouble going back to sleep because he was too excited to see Brayden's reactions!  After eating breakfast, we opened our gifts to one another.  Again, Brayden loved opening gifts and kept wanting more : )

We went to church on Sunday morning and then had lunch at my parents house with the rest of the family. It was noisy, chaotic and wild as usual, but I wouldn't have it any other way. The cousins love to play together when everyone is here...it reminds me of the days when I played with my cousins at Christmas. After lunch, it was time for another round of opening presents. Talk about chaos! All the children were super excited to open their new toys...Brayden got some pretty neat stuff Christmas Day, so he should be entertained for awhile, I hope!

We had such a wonderful Christmas with our families...its hard to believe its come and gone already! 

Tis the Season

We have been busy celebrating Christmas and taking part in lots of activities lately.  Last Saturday we had Breakfast with Santa at our church.  Brayden was super excited to go see Santa and tell him what he wants for Christmas this year.  He was not shy one bit....as soon as we walked in, he said "Where's Santa?"  I pointed him out and Brayden bee-lined straight to him and jumped up in his lap!  We took advantage of having all the Grimes' grandchildren in the same spot, and got a pretty good picture of them with Santa.

 

 Brayden is really loving the all of the Christmas decorations.  He was eager to help decorate our house and tree as soon as Greg even mentioned that it was almost time to do so a few weeks ago.  He wouldn't stop talking about it, so we finally gave in.  He was a big help and loved hanging the ornaments...the bottom of the tree is a little ornament heavy, but we left it that way!  Brayden is still rearranging the ornaments every now and then. 

 Last Sunday was our church's children choir Christmas performance.  The cherub choir that Brayden is a part of sang three songs and were adorable.  Brayden really loves children's choir and did a great job!

 Hard to see him, but he is a dressed up as a sheep for the last song they sang, a little to the left of the center.

Brayden helped Greg ring the Salvation Army bell out at Belk's on Thursday afternoon for about an hour.  He loved it!  Greg said that donations went from 3 or 4 out of 10 people giving, to 9 out of 10 while Brayden was helping.   He didn't want to leave when I came to get him.  He helped Grandpa ring the bell for a little while this morning out at Walmart again.  It was much colder, so he didn't stay too long though.  It was very cute to hear him say "Merry Christmas" to everyone walking in and out of the store. 

Can't believe Christmas is just a week away!  We are so excited to see Brayden's reactions on Christmas morning when he sees everything Santa brings.  Christmas is so much fun with a little one!  He keeps asking if its Christmas yet and checks outside for snow everytime he asks...doesn't look like we'll be getting any this year, so I'm not sure what he'll think of that.  Oh well, something he'll have to get use to because a white Christmas is definitely a rare occurence around here!

Thanksgiving

We traveled to upstate NY for Thanksgiving this year to visit Greg's relatives.  We figured this would be the last good opportunity to go before winter weather and baby boy #2 arrive!  Our rides there and back were LONG, but Brayden did great thank goodness!  I bought him a few new toys & DVDs to help keep him entertained during the rides, and they did the trick.  He was very excited to go to NY and see everyone, especially cousin Luciana and Greg's cousin Heather.  Brayden had such a good time playing with them both....and Greg and I enjoyed the break from having Brayden on our heels 24/7!  We enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving dinner with most of the Sharkey family.  We ate too much, especially the desserts, which I took advantage of since I'm eating for two now : )  It was so nice to see everyone and spend time with them.  We definitely had a great time and made some good memories.  Below are a few pictures from our trip: 

Cousins

The Sharkey family

Brayden took this picture of Luciana taking a picture of him!

Glued to the TV

Brayden dressed up in Luciana's "Super Girl" Halloween costume...sequin purple cape & all! So glad we're having another boy so he'll have another male around to help with all his girl cousins :)

Halloween

We have definitely celebrated Halloween this year and Brayden loved every minute of it.  This year he dressed up as.....what else, Spiderman!  Last Wednesday we went to our church's annual Fall Festival at church, where Brayden had a blast.  He enjoyed the bounce houses, face painting, balloon animals, cake walk and best of all, trunk or treating! 

 On Sunday night, Brayden helped Greg carve his first jack-o-lantern.  He wasn't as into it as we thought he'd be...this one handful of pumpkin goo is about all he did to participate.  Greg had fun with it though, and Brayden was excited about the end result.

His class had a Halloween party at MMO on Monday morning, where most of the kids came dressed up in the Halloween costumes.  Brayden was really excited to wear his Spiderman costume (he even asked if he could wear it again today!) 

Monday evening, we went out in the cold rain to do a little trick or treating in our neighborhood.  Brayden was really into it this year and was excited to go door to door.  Mommy & daddy had enough after about 5 houses...it was nasty out!  We came home and handed out candy to the crowds of trick or treaters that came to our neighborhood.  I was surprised at how many went out despite the weather.  Brayden loved seeing all the different costumes, especially the ones of Buzz Lightyear and the different superheroes who came to our door.

We enjoyed all of the Halloween festivites this year, but I'm glad it is finally over!  Now its time to get thinking about Christmas....

It's A Boy!

I am a little behind in posting this, but things have been a little hetic and crazy around here the past few weeks with Brayden's birthday, work and just everyday life!  Last Tuesday, we found out we are expecting another boy!  We are thrilled to welcome another boy into the family....Brayden definitely needs one to help him out with all his girl cousins  ; )  We took Brayden with us for the ultrasound so he could see the baby in mommy's tummy that we've been talking about for weeks.  I don't know how much he really understood what he was seeing (I didn't even understand a lot of the things the tech pointed out on the ultrasound...I don't know how they know what they are looking at sometimes)    He was excited to find out it was a baby brother because that is what he has been saying he wanted.  When the ultrasound was all done, Brayden said "are we gonna get the baby out now?"  He was very disappointed to find out we weren't...he whined and came so close to tears when we were leaving, saying "Where's my baby brother...I want my baby brother!"  It was pretty cute.  Here are a few ultrasound pics of our little peanut.  Now it's time to start thinking about names...I think that's the hardest part for us!

Happy Birthday Brayden!

Brayden turned 3 last Thursday!  We had several celebrations during the week for his birthday.  We started on Wednesday when I took cupcakes to MMO for a little "school party".  He was very excited to have me at MMO with him, but he didn't believe me that we were doing it for his birthday  : )  For weeks before, Greg and I kept telling him that his birthday was coming up, so he kept telling me it wasn't his birthday yet...it was coming up!

We had lunch with some friends at McDonald's on Thursday followed by a trip to Lowe's to look at the Halloween decorations that afternoon.  (That is his FAVORITE thing to do lately and it's what he told us he wanted to do that day!!)  We had dinner Thursday night at Pizza Inn with my parents and brother's family, follwed by cake and presents at our house.  Brayden finally believed it was his birthday when he knew there were presents involved!  He was very into opening them this year and loved everything he got, especially the Little Tikes from mommy and daddy.  I think he had a little too much birthday celebration for the day, because he had a slight meltdown when Madeline, Lydia and Margo tried playing with his new things.  He is usually a good sharer, but not that night.  It was a sign that he is definitely 3 now!

Finally, on Saturday we had a Spiderman birthday party at our house. All of our family, friends and his friends from church came to help us celebrate. It was a perfect day for an outdoor party and everything went so well for such a large group. Brayden loved having all of his little friends at his house to play. Grammy made him an awesome Spiderman cake that I almost didn't even want to cut, it looked so good! The kids played, decorated Spiderman masks, watched a "magic show" from Lydia, ate pizza & cake, and watched Brayden open all of his presents. He got so many fun new toys, but his most favorite is the "Big Buzz Lightyear" from Grammy and Grampa that he had been asking for for weeks.

We had such a busy week of birthday celebrations...it was exhausting, but fun.  Hard to believe my baby boy is now 3 years old!