Merry Christmas

I LOVE Christmas! I really do! I think that it is even more special when you have your own child because there is so much joy in seeing them get excited! Of course Braden didn't understand the concept of Santa this year, but he could recognize Santa, Christmas tree, snowman, ornament, etc. And this year he was somewhat more interested in unwrapping his gifts.

We spent Christmas Eve with my parents at their home and we had steak and shrimp which was delicious! Then we opened gifts and spent time enjoying each other. It was a very, very nice evening. We got home around 8:30 and we put Braden to bed and Brad and I exchanged our gifts to each other. Then it was time for Santa to come and we managed to crawl into bed just before midnight!

We had to wake Braden up Christmas morning around 8 and I was so disappointed that it rained the night before because I had envisioned him being able to spend lots of time on his new swing set. But he was excited about the swing set and he was able to enjoy the other toys that he received inside so it all worked out just fine. My parents and Brad's parents came over for Christmas breakfast and after my parents left we spent time with Brad's parents and exchanged gifts. We went to my Aunt's house for Christmas lunch at 2:00 and we were home by 5:30 and completely exhausted! However, this magical season only comes once a year and I truly enjoy being able to spend so much time with our family so to me the exhaustion was completely worth it. Till next Christmas.......

The only annoying part of the Christmas was the Chipmunks CD that I bought for Braden that we have been listening to since Thanksgiving. I will be completely happy if I NEVER hear the chipmunks again!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful and joyful holiday season!

Happy Birthday Jesus

This morning Braden and I made our traditional Happy Birthday Jesus cupcakes. He helped me dump in the batter and add the water and he also added 3 uncracked eggs to the mix! I did crack them before we baked. After the cupcakes cooled he got to decorate the frosted cupcakes with sprinkles and snowman toothpicks.

He kept wanting to eat the cupcakes, but he ate some icing instead and we will wait until Christmas Day to eat our Happy Birthday Jesus cupcakes as we celebrate the birth of our Savior.

Happy Birthday Jesus!

The Polar Express

The Polar Express has been my favorite book since the 3rd grade when Ms. Hutcherson read the story to our class. A few years later my brother gave me the book for Christmas. When I heard that they have a Polar Express train ride in the Smoky Mountains, I booked our trip and we set out to board the Polar Express.

Braden has only seen about 5 minutes of the movie and it was the Hot Cocoa scene (I HATE the movie by the way). He was really excited when we boarded the train for the 1 hour 15 min round trip the North Pole. We were treated to hot cocoa that was just the right temp for a little mouth and marshmallow covered Santas (Braden's first taste of marshmallows- YUM), Christmas carols, the Polar Express reading, a visit from the conductor to punch our tickets, a visit from Santa to deliver his first gift of Christmas (bells from his sleigh) and a 2nd visit from Santa for a picture and to sign your copy of the book. It was a great trip and we will be returning next year. however, next year we will reserve our tickets in enough time to do the night train ride.

It was an exciting trip. We stayed in Cherokee, NC Saturdday night whick is only 15 minutes from Bryson City, NC where the train departed. It was interesting sleeping in the same hotel room with Braden. Brad tried to get a suite, but their weren't any so let's just say it was an interesting night.....

Hoffman Family Christmas

The first Saturday in December we celebrated Christmas with Brad's side of the family. We had some great fun and we got to enjoy every one's company. Braden enjoyed spending time with all of his cousins (6 and 1 more on the way!). He especially loved all of the attention that he got from Emma and the kisses that he kept "stealing" from Berkley. He is definitely a ladies man!

The brothers chatting it up

Grandpa and Grandma hanging out with all of the grandkids

Braden "smooching" Berkley

Ahhhh....The Dreaded Christmas Picture

Well I thought that last year was tough getting a Christmas picture taken with an almost 1 year old. Well I was wrong because last year was a breeze! Getting a picture taken with an almost 2 year old was worse! Braden is cutting his 2 year molars so he is drooling and his fingers NEVER want to leave his mouth. Also he doesn't respond to jingling a bell or any other cutesy song that used to get his attention. This year I finally got 2 cute shots of him and I had to make throw up/vomiting/gagging noises to get him to look up and laugh! (I thought this might work since he cracks up laughing if I gag while I am changing his diaper) Ahhh! What a boy! This was my last attempt and I am glad that it worked! Here are a couple of our pictures......

Hands in the mouth

It looks like I am wrestling with him.....which I was!

Hey....Braden.....Can you look at Mommy and smile?

UHHH! GAG! BWWWHH! Hey there is that handsome smile!

Long time....No post

I know that it has been a solid month since I have posted and all of the people who read my blog (hey mom and dad) have been missing my posts. I don't know where November went. I think that it flew by amidst the Lysol (strep throat, bronchitis and head colds in our house this month) and the ceiling foamy popcorn stuff (Brad fell through the ceiling when he was in the attic- I have pictures but I have been forbidden from sharing them -at least until his ego heals!- Love ya honey) and recovering from Halloween/preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Anyway I promise that I will do better this month- I'll have to post Santa pics plus we are taking Braden to the Smoky Mountains for a weekend in December to ride on the Polar Express train- I'm SOOOOO excited! I am too tired to write anymore tonight...but I promise more in December. I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Happy Halloween!

Last night was awesome! The air was crisp and everyone was excited about Halloween. Braden was adorable in his Indian costume. All of the kids were so cute. Our chili and hot dogs were great and the hayride was the best! We visited the haunted house that is set up in our neighborhood every year and Braden didn't get scared until he saw a pretend spider on someone's hand. Here are some pictures.

Halloween 2007

I love Halloween! It feels like the official kick off to the holiday season. The days just seem to speed by between Halloween and Christmas. When I was little our Halloween tradition was to eat chili and rice, dress up and all of my cousins would come over to trick or treat. When Brad and I bought our first house we started doing this, but then it was only to dress Avery and my cousin's dog Cobi up for Halloween. Now that 2 of my cousins and myself have kids of our own we are back at the old tradition of chili and rice (& we added hotdogs for Brad since he's so darn picky!) and we are dressing our children up and taking them trick or treating. Last year was so much fun and everyone seemed so little. I can't wait unti this year when we can trick or treat with our "big" boys and my cousin Shane is bringing a trailer filled with hay so that we can have a hay ride through the neighborhood.

Here are some pictures of last Halloween. Braden was so little!

No No.....

Just a cute Braden story....I moved all of Braden's snacks to the bottom shelf of our pantry (thanks for the idea mom) so that he could choose what he wanted to snack on. Tonight while he was getting a snack the Vagetable Oil on the shelf above his fell off. Of course he said "uh-oh", but the funny part was that when he put it back up there it wobbled a little and he poked it back up and said , "No No". It was so funny!

Pumpkin Patch

Saturday we took Braden to Southern Belle, a pumpkin patch in McDonough, GA. It was so nice. The weather was cool so it actually felt like fall and there were so many fun things to do. Braden's favorite activity was going down the slide that they had in the "kiddie corral". We took a ride on the "cow train", visited farm animals (Braden kept "mooing" at the cow and it was so funny, Brad shot pumpkins, and we picked out a pumpkin to bring home and carve. Braden decided to take a lillte spill in the mud while he was hunting for his very own little pumpkin. It was a great day and full of lots of fun memories!

OOPS

I hacked up my son's hair tonight! It is bad....really bad! He was starting to grow a mullet again and I thought that I could give it a quick trim while he was in the bathtub like I did one other time, but now Brad has banned me from ever using scissors around Braden again. The worst part is that every time I look at him I can't help but laugh because he has no idea how incredibly funny it looks. Am I the only one who finds this funny? Even Brad giggled a little bit when he got finshed fussing at me! I don't want to cut the rest of his hair any shorter and his hair grows pretty fast so I am thinking about not doing anything and just letting it grow out. Any suggestions?

HeeHeeHee......OOPS

Finally.......

I am a planner. I cannot help it. It is ingrained deep within me. I like to make a plan for everything and I like for it to be executed. If you are making plans with me don't tell me you will be at my house sometime in the afternoon....tell me the exact time and then stick to it as closely as possible. I cannot help it this is just the way I am. My favorite part of being a planner is that I love to plan for holidays, birthdays, etc. For example I knew that Braden was going to have a John Deere birthday party for his 1st birthday before he was 3 months old. This gave me plenty of time to research and come up with my idea of a great 1st birthday party. I am already trying to plan our Christmas Eve menu with my mom, but she just wants to get through Halloween and Thanksgiving first. I can't help it. I am a planner.
The one thing I have not been able to plan out and it bugs the crap out of me is that I can never decide on Braden's Halloween costume ( I didn't decide on his pirate outfit last year until 2 weeks before and I just saw it and knew that he would be so precious). I never put things off until the last minute, especially something as exciting as dressing him up, but I just couldn't decide on costumes. I didn't want him to be an animal (it seems too babyish now) and I don't like the character costumes ( he'll want to wear that stuff soon enough). First I wanted him to be a UPS guy, but the costume was too big and really not that impressive. Then I wanted him to be a golfer, complete with golf clubs. Once again I wasn't really into it. I was even as desperate as to suggest a baby pimp outfit ( I know it sounds horrible but the costume was HILARIOUS). Brad and my mom thought that I was nuts and they were both ready to kill me if I ordered that costume. I finally found a cute Fisher man costume, but i just never could commit. Over Fall Break my parents went to Cherokee, NC and they brought Braden back a drum, tomahawk, stick horse and Indian headdress. I didn't really think anything about it until Saturday night when he started beating his drum and I put the headdress on him and he started running around in circles yelling and beating the drum. He was so cute and at that moment I knew that he had to be an Indian. I ordered the costume and it is on it's way! I can't wait to post my Halloween pictures of my adorable little Indian! Here is a sneak peak and waht gave me the idea!

UGLY- You Ain't Got No Alibi.......

I have been looking for Braden a wooden table and chairs set for months now. They are VERY hard to find. At least to find one that I liked and that wasn't $100 (OUTRAGEOUS!). On Thursday Brad and I started Christmas shopping early (this should be a whole other blog- I don't think that it is a good idea for me to start early b/c I am sure that I will continue shopping right up until Christmas Eve and just spend even more!) Anyway.......we saw this really cute blue wooden table with red chairs and it was great until I saw the price tag. $50 for the table and $27 for EACH chair and I knew that I was going to have to spend money painting it to match Braden's room also. I started thinking about this insanely UGLY green and gray wooden table that I have seen on Tuesday when I worked the drop off for the consignment sale. I made up my mind then that if this ugly table was still around when I shopped on Friday I would buy it. Well THANK YOU Ashley for saving it for me though it was so ugly that I'm not sure anyone would have bought it! However I got it for .....drum roll please.......$18!!!!!!!! After some sanding, 4 coats of white paint and over 8 hours I am happy to say that both Braden and I LOVE his BEAUTIFUL table. I painted polka dots and stripes to match the pictures that I painted for his playroom this summer and I painted part of the top of the table with chalkboard paint so that he can draw on the table chalk (or callk). Brad put up a cork board to hang his work and I added some tins over his board to store his chalk and crayons.

My inspiration for painting his table

Imagine It!

Today Brad and I took Braden to Imagine It!, the children's museum in downtown Atlanta. It was awesome and Braden had SO much fun! Brad and I had a great time also. Braden took off as soon as we got there. We are really beginning to realize how much of a big boy he is now. He is so independent and such a go getter. He just took off and started playing.

The museum is set up into "centers" and the current "theme" is Bob the Builder. They have a water center, moon sand and art center, simple machine center, dramatic play (dress up and housekeeping), a complete center that shows growing vegetable all the way to delivering them to the grocery store, and then a huge Bob the Builder center. Bob the Builder is also worked into most of the other centers. Braden's favorite activity was playing on the delivery truck that looked like a giant van. Braden kept calling it a bus (which is his favorite vehicle). Every time we would move to anew center he somehow "found" his way back to the "bus". He was actually sitting in the driver seat when it was time for us to leave. Of course when we told him we needed to go bye-bye he said in his very sweet Braden voice, "no....oh no...no". I told him to blow the bus a kiss and the whole way out of the museum he kept blowing kisses saying "mmmmmwwwww" (what he says when he blows a kiss). It was so cute.

We had such a great time and we are definitely going to take Braden back soon. I just wish that we lived closer.