December 2010

This month.......

We had breakfast with Santa at our church (and Brady was surprisingly well-behaved).

Rob bought a new (to us) truck. And I have completely neglected to take any pictures of it yet, except for this one of Brady in the backseat and becoming more and more frustrated by all my picture taking.

We went in search of the perfect Christmas tree...

and found it.

Brady supervised....

and threw around old tree stumps.

Carson and I took absolutely no part in any type of manual labor except for picture taking....

which Brady was totally annoyed by.

Until he saw the "train" go by and thought he was being left behind.

We're not that mean though. He was in heaven, although I'm sure the passengers that sat around us could have done without the train noise "sound effects" Brady was screaming while we waited to depart. 

Brady's Mom's Day Out class had their Christmas party.

And they all wore their reindeer t-shirts (made out of their hand and foot prints).

Which I neglected to get a clear picture of.

But take my word for it, they were the cutest t-shirts I've ever seen. I actually got tears in my eyes when he brought it home in his bag a few days before the party. 

And then Christmas morning came. And we were completely spoiled by our families...

What do you mean I have to write Thank You notes???

Then our friends Justin, Britni and Noah came over for dinner Christmas evening.

Brady and Noah exchanged gifts....

and of course Brady had to "help" Noah unwrap his (Brady was an expert at unwrapping by this point in the day).

We had a yummy dinner prepared by the fabulous Honeybaked Ham Company :)

Some of my goodies I received from Rob and my mom.

Overall, we had a great Christmas! The only thing that would have made it better would have been to spend it with family....we missed you! 

And one last picture of me. I had to ask Rob to take a picture of me pregnant (29 weeks).  I have so many pics of me pregnant with Brady, but hardly any this time around. 

We are leaving for a short trip to Atlanta this afternoon. I'm really looking forward to it. The last time we took a trip there was when we decided to start "trying" for a baby. Three months later I got pregnant with Brady. We are planning on doing some shopping at my favorite mall - Lenox Mall - shopping at Ikea, and taking Brady to the Georgia Aquarium and possibly the children's museum as well. We are staying at a really nice place too with a large indoor pool which I'm sure Brady will love :) 

Happy New Year!

Etsy Love

I can't seem to stop buying stuff for Carson! Check out these adorable items I have recently purchased from different sellers on Etsy. Note: I haven't received any of them yet, but I have high hopes that all will be just as cute in real life :)

Bib - Sparkle Power

Fabric Banner - Sparkle Power

ABC Print - Sweet William

 

And my favorite....Beautiful "play" quilt - Lemon Tree Lane Quilts

I absolutely cannot wait to start putting this sweet baby's nursery together. I am waiting on the bedding I ordered for Brady's room to arrive so we can get his "big boy room" together first, then I can move all the nursery furniture to our other bedroom and start working on Carson's room. 

I had a doctor's appointment last week and another ultrasound. I am so happy that my placenta has moved to where it's supposed to be, so placenta previa is no longer an issue! The bad news is that they still could not find Carson's left kidney. So I have an appointment scheduled in January with a high-risk OB for another ultrasound to look for it closer. Sounds scarier than it is though. I'm really not concerned about him only having one - as long as that one is functioning well. What I am more concerned about is knowing that if they have detected this problem that there may be another more serious problem elsewhere that either isn't detectable or hasn't been detected yet. Hopefully though the other doctor I'm going to see will do a more thorough scan and reassure me. Another possibility is that the kidney isn't at all missing, just "misplaced". He will be evaluated by a urologist and have an ultrasound performed after birth to find out. Another mom in our Mom's Bible Study at church told me a few weeks ago this is the case with her son - his kidneys are fully functioning, just not in the exact spot they should be in. 

Birthday Celebrations!

I wanted to post a few pictures of Brady's visits from both sets of grandparents before I forget. We had a large birthday party for him last year in Ohio and I didn't really feel it was necessary to do that all over again this year. Instead Rob's parent's came to visit the weekend after his birthday and we had a very small party for him. Basically just pizza, cupcakes, balloons & presents. Justin, Britni & Noah joined us and Brady had a blast.

While Grandma & Grandpa Campbell were in town we also visited our church's pumpkin patch. Brady LOVED sticking his head through the Peanuts cartoon cutout.....Noah, not so much :)

Two weeks later my parents drove down for celebration #2. Brady had so much fun while they were here. He adores them. Plus they brought their dog, George (a blind yellow Lab), with them and Brady couldn't get enough of him. Thanks for visiting mom & dad!

Picture Time

I didn't plan on having any professional pictures taken this year. We spent a small fortune last year and I figured we would just wait till next year after Carson had joined our family before we invested in more. Plus I have never been overly impressed with any of our local photographer's work I have seen before (our pictures last year were taken in Cincinnati). But I came across a business card for a new local photographer who was offering holiday mini sessions for super cheap. I couldn't pass it up. If you are local check her out - Kati Nelson Photography. 

This one will be on our Chrirstmas card this year.

The Name

We've actually had our newest addition's name picked out for quite a while. And we've already shared it with the majority of our friends and family. With Brady we kept the name a secret until he was born. The main reason for this was that I didn't want any unsolicited opinions about whether or not people liked the name we had chosen. I was scared that if someone said they didn't like it we might start to question it ourselves.  This time around though I feel a bit more confident about my role as a mother and couldn't care less if people like the name or not :) So here it is.......

Today is also my big sister's birthday! I doubt she reads this little ole' blog of mine, but if she does I just want to say Happy Birthday Sister! Just remember you will always be older than me :)

And Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We don't have any plans this year. All our family lives too far away to celebrate with. I'll be cooking some of Rob's favorites and he is planning on trying something new....cooking a beer can turkey on his Big Green Egg. Hopefully it's edible? I must confess that Thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday.....only because it revolves around eating and I am the world's pickiest eater and don't like any of the traditional food. Growing up I always ate a frozen pizza while the rest of my family enjoyed their feast. I'm trying my hardest this year to make it a happy celebration even though I would really prefer some Chinese takeout:)

Halloween

I've never been a huge Halloween fan (besides the part about eating candy till you want to explode). I think this is in large part due to my parents never making a fuss about it. We went trick or treating every year, but  I don't EVER remember my mom buying me a costume. I was always something homemade and thrown together at the last minute and a dime was never spent. I can't even tell you how many times I went as a court jester (some old costume we had, which I'm pretty sure was given to us for free), witch, or hillbilly. I think all this somehow squished my enthusiasm for the holiday. Which is ok with me. I still don't like the "scary" stuff associated with Halloween. I prefer the cute costumes and decorations instead. But mark my words....my children will never feel like outcasts because they don't have a costume:)

Brady had so much fun trick-or-treating. In my opinion he was still too little to need all that junk food....thank God I'm here to eat it for him:) But he sure did have a blast knocking on doors and saying his version of "trick-or-treat". My child is fearless and not the least bit shy. He was barging in every house we went to. And was adorable telling everyone "Tank Yu". It really made me smile.

One other thing I want to make note of: We've been singing the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" together a lot lately and Brady knows almost all of the movements that go along with it. Sometimes I don't even do them and I just watch him. I cry every time I see him do it. I don't know why. He is growing up too fast.