Thursday, February 20, 2014

Family, Friends, Mississippi, Baths, Rockwall, Concerts, Changing Jobs, Pedicure, Baby Dedication, Valentine's, Cleaning, Eating, Four Month Appointment, Beautiful Weather...Oh MY!

Wowza!  A lot has happened since my last post, and I mean A LOT!  I've uploaded a bunch of photos and figured I'd let most of them do the speaking. :)

Some of our good friends, David & Kelley Fink, added to their family in late December.  We took some dinner to them one night.  Malachi and Brayden are going to be bros (I've been informed that boys don't have BFFs). :)
Ms. Bailey being cute. :)

Just my boy being precious before church one Sunday morning.
He absolutely loves his bath time. 
Love my boys!
 We went to Mississippi a weekend in January to visit family.  We had a lot of fun, and Brayden did a pretty good job for his first road trip.
Me and Charly. :)
Bray getting to meet family.
Poor Emily got spit up on right after this pic.


We weren't even out of the state of Mississippi, and he was out of it.
I used my birthday money to buy some photo books from Snap Fish.  I've had a lot of them made for a while now, I've just been waiting for a good sale to purchase them.  They were 50% off, so I snapped up seven.  I got one of our wedding, first four years of marriage, getting ready for Brayden (showers, sonograms, etc.), and the day of and a few days following Brayden's birth.  I love them!

I love his cold weather clothes. :)
Brayden went to his very first concert, a Gaither Vocal Band concert.  Nick was supposed to come with us (my parents, Sister, and Bill & Joyce from my home church), but he ended up going hunting for the weekend with some friends.  We had a lot of fun though.  Except for the blow out that Bray & I experienced before the concert.  He's had blow outs before, but never out in public.  I had to give him a full wardrobe change at Cheddar's before the concert, and I would have given my self a wardrobe had I had some clothes.  Brayden was having a hard time at the beginning of the concert.  But by halfway through, he was asleep and fine. :)  I'm hoping he'll do well with future concerts because we like to go to them. :)



I love a boy in overalls!
He's so happy after bath time!
Nick, Brayden, & I went out to eat with the Maybens and Harwells to celebrate the end of duck hunting season.  The McKenzie's were supposed to come too, but Callen had been a little under the weather.  We had a lot of fun though.  We ate at The Butcher Shop in Longview.  I thought I was going to have a first and pull Kenlie's tooth, but I couldn't get it loose.

Our little boy is no longer little.  I've put all of Bray's newborn to three month clothes up.  I'm about to have to put more up. :(


Nick and I made a huge decision in January.  I turned in my two weeks notice to Pilgrim Bank the Tuesday after Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Nick's business has grown (and for that I am thankful), and we needed to hire someone to be his office manager.  We decided that I was the best person for the job.  Plus, this would allow me more leniency with Brayden.  Bray still goes to our church on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then we have a sitter for him on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I get to stay home with him on Fridays.  The other four days, I'm working on getting us organized and ready for the busiest time of year for a landscape business.  So far, I'm loving this decision.  We've prayed about it a lot, and we believe this was what God wanted us to do.  I pray he continues to bless us in this time.  My last day at the bank, I went to eat lunch with a lot of the ladies I've grown to love over the past four and a half years.  I'll miss them, but I'll get to visit them. :)

He has discovered his tongue.  I ask for a smile, and this is what I get.

Brayden's baby dedication was Sunday, February 9th.  Our friends, Jimmy & April, came to spend Saturday night.  Sadly, they weren't able to come to the actual dedication.  Jimmy had a kidney stone and April rushed him to the hospital Sunday morning.  Poor guy. :(  We did have a lot of family and friends come to witness the dedication and pray over our sweet boy though.  We then had a taco bar for lunch at our house following church.  I'm so blessed to be this little boy's momma, and I cannot wait to see what the Lord is going to do with him in his future.



I got a fun pedicure the Friday before the dedication. :)  Thanks Jessica!




Brayden did his first craft at Kids Crossing at church for Valentine's day.  Made me cry!

One of his new faces. :)


For the Valentine's, my sweet husband took me out to Rockwall/Garland.  We had the first night away from our boy, but it was much needed.  We stayed in a suite at the Hilton.  It was a gorgeous place!  We spent Saturday sleeping in (hallelujah) and shopping in Dallas.  BTW, we'll never to go IKEA again.  It took us forever to get out of the dang store.  My parents kept Bray, and Nick's parents kept the pups.  It'll be a while before we leave him again, but it was nice to have one on one time with each other.







My sweet hubby got me roses, Red, and Red 2.  Love him!  He also got me a card from Brayden.  I lost it when I read it. I had done so well dropping Brayden off with my Mom and not crying.  As soon as I read the card telling me how much he loved me, I started bawling.  Nick said eh considered that a win.  He knew he did well. :)

Everything goes to the mouth these days.
See.
 We had dinner at some friend's house, the McCormicks, last Sunday.  We had three babies that will be in the same class at school (Bracton, Brayden, and Malachi) plus lost of other kids.  We had a lot of fun!



We've been feeding Brayden cereal with a spoon.  He has to be stripped down when this happens.

Oma & Joepa playing with Bray.

I went into our pantry on Tuesday to get some food for lunch.  Instead of picking out the food I was going to make, I ended up organizing my entire laundry room.  Took about an hour, but it made me so happy!  Wish I would have taken a before picture, but that would have been slightly embarrassing. :)



First time eating in clothes.
He cannot fit into 6-9 month jammies that were just bought for him  at the beginning of February.  What are we going to do with him?
Today, Brayden had his four month check up and shots.  He's in the 95th percentile for weight (18 lb 14 oz); 97th percentile for head circumference (17.75 in); and 75th percentile for height (26 in).  He's perfect and healthy.  We've been given the go ahead to start feeding him baby food.  I'm going to try my hand at making homemade food.  We'll see how this goes.  He had three shots and one oral vaccination. 

He's been pretty sleepy most of the day, but we did take a walk around the neighborhood.  Bray "walked" Satchel.  I attached Satchel's leash to the footrest of the stroller.  Both of them loved it.  Bray kept laughing at him.
We are loving this beautiful weather!  I'm not putting away the cold weather things yet though.  It's supposed to get cold again next week.  Phooey.

Looking forward to the future!!!