In Her Spare Time....

This picture was captured as found.  No rearranging of Mary was done whatsoever.  

The Virgin Mary (mother of Jesus in our boys' nativity set) enjoys riding in the bass boat in her spare time when not tending to baby Jesus and watching over him while the 3 wise men bring him presents.  Her other hobbies include driving tractors and riding in the back of recycling trucks.  

Just in case you were wondering...

Jamison is 8 Months!

Jamison is 8 months old!

Stats

Weight: 18 lbs 10 oz

Length: 28.25"

Jamison is growing up all too fast, but don't I always say that?  He has two bottom teeth and is still doing the baby-led-weaning for meals.  He loves grains of any sort and all meats.  Haven't found too many fruits and veggies that he really loves, but he's willing to give some a try and manages to get a little in here and there.  We gave him a little applesauce by spoon since we were at church and he looked interested and he took that okay.  

Jamison still does his original scoot while keeping head on the floor/twist/scrunch/roll to get around and seems to be content with that for his mode of transportation.  He is still taking the same 1.5 hour morning nap and 1.5-2 hour afternoon nap.  He still nurses once in the night (longer than any of the others) but he's my baby and I'm okay with it still (for now!).

He started waving right after Thanksgiving, but doesn't show off on command.  Only when he wants to.  He is generally a happy, easy baby and we love him SOOOO MUCH!

Our Christmas Tree

Since Thanksgiving was so late this year, it means that the "Christmas Season" has been shortened.  Bummer.  

We needed to go ahead and get our Christmas Tree ASAP so we could enjoy it for as long as possible!  We try and get our tree from a local farm that also supports our boy scout troop.  It is truly win-win.  We have had a live tree since Brighton was two, and I hope we continue to do so.  Having a fake tree, just isn't the same :)

We headed to the tree lot and posed for pictures in the various sleighs.  There was hardly any complaining at all about putting on Christmas sweaters!  All mommy had to say was those that were wearing sweaters got a candy cane that they hand out at the lot, and those that weren't didn't.  

Easy enough!

After looking around at every possible tree, and trying to find one in our budget, we settled on this one.  The big boys had picked out a 10-12 footer, but that wouldn't fit in our home where we normally place it.  Maybe another year, boys!

Just for picture sake, I had Derek snap one of the tree on top of the van.

When we got home, we managed to get the tree inside and situated in the stand.  That was about all the fun we could handle for one day, so we left the garland and lights for the next day.

Derek and I differ slightly on how to decorate the tree, I like my beaded garland, and he does not.  He doesn't like it because the boys LOVE to play with it and that can drive you crazy sometimes, but I love the memories from each year about how excited the boys get over the strands of red beads.  They are always a favorite with the boys and this year was no exception.  

It was finally Maverick's year to place the star on the tree!  He was so excited!!

Love this picture of Derek with Maverick, so cute!

Now, it was time for the lights.  We put one strand of colored and one strand of white.  Chandler and Brighton helped with some assistance from Mom and Dad.  Maverick did some here and there, but was done with the picture taking at this point.

It was four days later before we tackled getting the ornaments up.  Now the tree is decorated and looks great!

So Thankful!

On the eve of Thanksgiving I was actually looking forward to the next day.  I'm not a huge turkey fan, and Thanksgiving has never been a favorite holiday of mine, but I think that is starting to change.  I was just excited for the chance to spend time with all of my family, have a wonderful meal, and just to cherish these moments as my family is growing up all too quickly.

Here are the boys dressed in their "festive" colors.

For the first time EVER in my life (or my dad's which would be slightly over 2x my age) we ate the Thanksgiving meal for supper instead of lunch.  That would be the one thing that I would change about this day.  It felt like all day long we were waiting for family to arrive and eat!  I'm definitely a fan of a large meal at lunch time with the leftovers (or whatever you feel like eating) later on at dinnertime.  Let's go back to that, okay?

We spent most of the morning watching the Macy's parade and the boys playing around inside.  We sang songs and danced around and with four boys it's not long before everything we try to do turns into WWE.  I guess that's just how it goes.  Later on, Jamison enjoyed knocking down Nanny's towers.  

Here's a picture of the table, pre-food.  I used my china, because I like to do things like that.  Even though I've also been known to pull out the Chinet because, frankly, cleanup is a breeze.  Since my only job this year was desserts, I figured I could handle the real china.  We had wine and cider for dinner.  Derek had sprite since he didn't like my muscadine wine selection.  That's about the only type that I really like that he does not.  It was what we had on-hand, so that's what you get.  

Diane/Grandma made a wonderful turkey and it was even better the next day when I used the leftovers in a pampered chef recipe.  All the boys enjoyed that!  We have so much to be thankful for.  We enjoyed a wonderful meal and spent quality time with our family.  What more can you ask for?

Godzilla Baby Attacks!

One of the fun things that our boys like to all play together is what we call "Godzilla Baby"

The bigger boys will set up cities complete with army men that are trying to protect the buildings from "Godzilla Baby."  Jamison always has the best time attacking the cities and knocking everything down.  I love my boys!

Christmas Parade!

On a whim, we decided to go to the Raleigh Christmas Parade.  We had been before, but not since 2010, and the two big boys didn't remember it.  In other years, it has been too cold, or interfered with the baby's nap.  Today wasn't too cold, and we thought Jamison would do okay missing his nap.  I'm glad we decided to go as we all had a wonderful time.

We did our best to leave early, but since we hadn't really planned for this, we were lucky that we made it out the door just before 9 a.m.  We actually scored front row seats for the big 3 on a blanket that we brought and Jamison was content in mom's lap (or being held by dad) for most of the time.

Jamison did fall asleep briefly in the ergo towards the end.  I had not remembered that the parade lasts 2 hours!  The boys loved all of the parade, especially all the candy that they got being in the front row.  

Jamison is such an easy, happy baby!

Finally Santa arrived!  What a fun day!

Praise God for the Playground!

Today our entire family headed to Nashville, NC for the playground dedication that was being held at NUMC in memory of my grandparents who bequeathed a large part of their estate to their beloved church.  It was approximately one year ago that they had a special church service to announce this, and part of the money that was given to the church was earmarked for the children.  It was decided that the children's playground would be updated.

My grandmother would have loved this as she taught Sunday school for 50+ years!

Waiting for the ribbon to be cut.

Mary Lou Braswell and Granddaddy Bob cut the ribbon to officially open the playground.

(the Braswell family also substantially gives to NUMC)

Everything on the playground was new except the Arc.  It is a staple to the church and playground, so it was given a new paint job.

Grandaddy Bob even tried out the see-saw.

Notice our dare-devil, Maverick, flying down the slide face first!