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

Picture Post

Below are some recent pictures taken over the past few weeks of the boys. Enjoy!

 

 My big baby

 Connor in his bathrobe

 Playing peek a boo with Madeline

 Enjoying a nice day outside

 Brayden and Margo

 Helping daddy on the computer

 Brayden and his friend Tanner at the pumpkin patch

 Brayden at his birthday party at preschool

 Connor getting into some wrapping paper

 My handsome boy "cheesing" in his new church tie

Happy baby!

Brayden is 4!

Brayden is 4!!  His birthday is always bittersweet to me...I'm so happy he is growing up, but it is going by way too fast!  This birthday was definitely one to remember, in both good and bad ways.  At the beginning of September, I had booked his birthday party at a funhouse that took care of everything; cupcakes, food, drinks, supplies, decorations, balloon animals, etc.  All we had to do was show up.  This sounded good to me because I have plenty going on this time of year at work and with the two boys, there is not much time to do anything else.  Well, to make a long story short, I found out last Thursday that the funhouse CLOSED for business earlier that week.  They didn't call, email, nothing...I had to find out on my own!  So, Thursday night Greg and I started party planning for Brayden's birthday party of 20 kids to be at our house on Saturday.  Less than 48 hours!

Everything turned out great, thank goodness. The weather was perfect, so we were able to set up everything in the back yard. All of his friends came to help celebrate, and I think everyone had a great time. They made their own Batman themed masks, got Batman temporary tattoos, played pin the logo on batman, and even got to practice their target shooting at the Batman villans with our dart guns. And they played, played, played on the swingset and chasing each other through the yard. I must say, I was kind of impressed with the party we pulled together in 48 hours. Brayden told me that night his birthday party was "amazing" : ) That definitely made all the hard work and stress worth it!