Prayers

Brayden started attempting to say his prayers before he eats and at bedtime awhile ago, but recently he has been saying them all day long. Anytime he pretends to cook something in his kitchen for us to eat he makes us hold hands so he can say prayers first. As you'll see in this video, or rather hear, I was caught spying on him. I rarely close my eyes while he's saying prayers because I think he's adorable trying to squeeze his eyes shut.

What he is saying is "God is great. God is good. Let us thank Him for our food. By His hands we all are fed. Give us Lord our daily bread. Amen."

PS - While writing this post we have said our prayers 3 times and I have been warned beforehand every time to close my eyes.

First Snow of the Season!

It has, of course, snowed since Brayden was born (barely), but this was the first time he was able to play in it - and he LOVED it! He was very confused at first, and had no interest in actually playing with the snow, but just wanted to take a walk while it snowed around him. I am on board for that! Unfortunately I was not dressed for a long walk because I didn't expect that from him, and he was in his pajama pants, but that didn't stop us.

Christmas

Christmas this year was SO much fun with Brayden. He was not totally aware of what was going on, but he was way more interested than last year at 9 months old, of course. Although we had a busy month celebrating Christmas, I don't have any (or in some cases only mobile) photos from then for three reasons: 1) I was lazy and rather enjoyed sitting back and experiencing Brayden's joy rather than missing it while snapping hundreds of photos, 2) I was too busy chasing a very excited 1 year old to bother with photos, and 3) I relied on other people to capture some photos, so (hint, hint) please share them!

We had help from Pop Pop picking up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving when all the Christmas stuff went up. Then we, or rather I (sans Brayden), began the month of Christmas with a quick day trip to NYC to see visit Macy's, FAO Schwartz, Rockefeller Center, and Radio City Music Hall for the Rockettes show with Patty and Lisa. We rode the train in to Union Station with Nana & Pop Pop to check out the large train display only to find a mini train display thanks to renovations. We had a bit of culture shock watching a Christmas parade in Centreville, MD (camo, tractors, and generators on pickup trucks - wow!) with Nana, Pop Pop, and Centreville's soon-to-be residents B, S, A & K. For the first time we went to the National Zoo for Zoo Lights with the whole family which is something I'd certainly do again.

Then the early Christmas celebrations began. We started a week before Christmas with Uncle B, Aunt S, A & K with breakfast for dinner, the Grinch, and gifts. This I actually do have photos from!

Brayden has a strange habit of feeding K, and K always obliges. We felt this should be documented.

A couple of days later we celebrated again with B, S, A & K and were also joined by the rest of our Wednesday night family dinner group, Uncle M, Aunt L, and Little B for a tapas feast and the classic Rudolph movie. A couple of days later we joined Aunt Heather, Lottie & Izzy at Nana & Pop Pops for a lobster feast and gifts. A couple of days later (see the pattern?) Aunt Ami & Uncle Kevin came over to join us and Nana & Pop Pop for another Christmas dinner and gifts. Although we had all of these Christmas celebrations prior, what makes me finally feel like it's Christmas was later that night with our church's candlelight service of Christmas music, which is always my favorite service of the season. And finally on Christmas Eve we had an early Christmas day with Granny & the Couture clan (they're 5 deep now, large enough for clan status). We had a B.A.B. (a big ass breakfast as Brian & his dad referred to Christmas breakfast), opened a small mountain of presents, watched Christmas movies, relaxed with the kids, and enjoyed a delicious dinner prepared by Wegman's (I highly recommend it!). The next morning I had to hold Brayden off with "toons in Mama's bed Mama" (as Brayden refers to watching TV in my bed) while we waited for Nana & Pop to get here bright and early. We opened another small mountain of presents, watched Brayden jump from toy to toy, and ate yet another Christmas feast.

After Santa visited

Aunt S gave me this 2 years ago and it is my favorite decoration to put on my tree

Waiting patiently...

"SANTA!! I KNOW HIM!!"

He didn't know where to begin

So as you can see we are both now bursting at the seams (from food & presents!) and exhausted! But we had a wonderful Christmas - thank you to all our family and friends!

Halloween

Last year Brayden went to the pumpkin patch but since he wasn't walking he wasn't overly interested. Because he didn't care I didn't buy a pumpkin because I have no interest in Halloween decorations. Well, this year Brayden has wanted to take home every pumpkin he sees, so we settled on 2 small pumpkins that he can color (over and over since the marker would not dry on the pumpkin), which was a HUGE hit!

For one of the pumpkins we went to a pumpkin patch with one of my closest friends and her kids.

Brayden was very into putting all the tiny white pumpkins into the wagon

Corn maze

Running out of the corn maze

Anything he can "drive" is a hit, especially enormous, rusted, dirty tractors

Brayden went to a Halloween party in Granny's neighborhood with his cousins - Alex as a hockey player and Val as Ariel.

His favorite part of the party was stealing Granny's lollipops.

This is the first year that Brayden dressed up for Halloween since I was too lazy to carry a non-candy-eating baby around trick-or-treating for candy last year. The plan was that A. would be Cinderella, K. & Brayden would be her two mice (Jack & Gus Gus), and B. would be prince charming. Well, apparently prince charming is not quite as popular as spider man, transformers, and TMNT because it was impossible to find. So, Nana handmade the group costumes of Cinderella & her 3 mice, why not?! Nana, Pop Pop, Oma, and Nai-Nai joined us for our weekly family dinner night followed by trick-or-treating.

After spending 3 days with his buddy during the hurricane the less than 24 hours apart was tough

We lost our youngest mouse halfway through trick-or-treating

And I can't forget, Brayden's 1st pumpkin thanks to Aunt S and Uncle B who bought pumpkins for us to carve as a hurricane project...

From no Halloween celebrations last year to a month of Halloween festivities this year

Happy birthday to my new nephew, Garin!