Christmas Past and Present

 I was running out of "Christmassy" outfits for Brailyn this year.  On some other blogs mommas were taking dresses that their babies wore the past year and using them as shirts this year!  That sounds good to me!  So on Sunday Brailyn sported her baby dress from last year as a big girl shirt this year!  Too precious!

11-21-09



12-26-10



Lights, LIGhts, LIGHTS!

Last night we headed to Hot Springs to take Brailyn to see the lights at Garven Woodland Gardens!  I absolutely love that place!  The lights are gorgeous, and it just holds many special memories for us!  Jody and I went one year while we were dating and had a wonderful evening!  I love Christmastime!  It's so romantic!  Then we went to see them on December 20, 2007! One of the happiest days of my life: The day my honey proposed!  Garven Gardens is so special to me!  We decided it would be fun for Brailyn to go and see all the lights, not to mention we wanted to go for ourselves too!  We got there later than we had planned, and there was a ton of people!  Brailyn really enjoyed herself at first!  She was in her stroller all bundled up just making happy talk!  So precious!  But after walking for forever, trying to get good pictures without holding evreyone up, and not getting great pictures because we didn't know how to work the camera right, mommy was a little stressed!  By the time we left we had a fussy baby on our hands!  We still had a long night ahead of us too!  Last year, Andy and Jennifer gave Jody a giftcard for Christmas and told us that it had to be used in Hot Springs so they could keep Brailyn.  We are just getting around to doing that!  Needless to say, after not leaving Garven until after 7:00 and not getting to their house until 7:40, we had to change plans!  We went to Chili's, which is another tradition of ours!  We went to Chili's on our first date, and we went to eat there after he proposed(we sat in the exact same booth both of those times, but not this one.  Santa Claus was in our booth this time!  I'm not kidding)!  So, our promise to Andy and Jennifer still stands!  We won't wait a whole year next time!  Brailyn had a blast with her aunt, uncle, and cousin though!  I can't wait to do it all again!  Okay, I'll quit babbling and post some pics now(Get ready, there is a bunch!):



Jody proposed to me under that bow!  It used to stand by itself in a different spot!  That night he said he was so nervous!  He carried his jacket around because it was too warm to wear one, but he had to bring it cause it had the ring in it!  He said he kept looking for a spot to propose and he looked up and saw teh bow and thought "Tying the knot!  That works!" 

Daddy and his beautiful girl!



Group shot under a beautiful arch, but it was so tall, you couldn't see us if you tried to get it all in the pic!



Daddy and Brailyn under the big wreath!





They have a ton of Christmas trees, and they are all so pretty!



Mommy and Brailyn in front of the gingerbread house!



Close up!  Impossible to get her to look at the camera!



She would not stand still and look at the camera!  Too many fun things to look at!  She looked so cute in her hat and mittens!



So I know it's blurry, but it was pretty!



It's so nice when people just ask you if you wnat them to take your picture!  We relly appreciate it!




Daddy and Brailyn in front of the tree below!



It just amazes me how they do all these lights!

Just Beautiful!  It was huge!  I love how the star looks so bright!

I have like 15 posts I need to do, but I just had to get this one up!  The others will come soon!

One Cool Cat and Shewoman!

Isn't she cool with her glasses!  She loves sunglasses now! SHe loves to wear mine in the car!  When she gets them on, she just laughs and grins! She brought those to me tonight and she wore them around just grinning for 10 minutes probably!

My little shewoman!  Is the box empty?  I'll never tell!  She has played with that box all day long!  Back and forth to her room she would go! She's too funny!

We love our sweet, precious, cool, strong, baby girl!

Beautiful Weather!

 Yesterday was just gorgeous outside!  We had a photoshoot appointment with Stacy Jester for our Christmas card, and I was afraid it was going to be freezing!  However, the weather was absolutely perfect!  We got some great pictures!  I may wait till I get the Christmas card made up before I post them.  We had a blast though!  Little monkey was loving it!  She went full force the whole time!  When we got home, we changed clothes and headed outside again!  Our plan was to let her play,and we would hang up Christmas lights!  Sadly, we realized we didn't have enough, and being the cheap-o I am, I will wait till after Christmas to buy more!  So it will be another year before we have lights on the outside!  Brailyn had a wonderful time outside though!  She loved running in the yard and playing in all the leaves!  She is a curious little monkey! She even managed to fall in the only mud puddle in our yard!  We finally had to go inside and eat lunch when she started snacking on leaves! HA We had a blast, and she wore herself plum out!  Sh slept for 3.5 hours after that!  Here are some pics from our fun day!


Up high on Daddy's shoulders!



Playing in the ditch! Do't worry, daddy was there!



Trying to go in the neighbor's yard!



Back on our side of the fence!



Leaves!



Who knew they could be so much fun?!?



Throwing leaves in the air!



Christmas Time Is Here!

I love Christmas!  I think I love it even more now that we are a family of three! Now that Brailyn is older, I am really looking forward to this Christmas!  I think she is going to love it!  It's really surreal to think that now is the time that we are starting "our" family traditions!  We decorated the tree and the rest of the house on Tuesday night.  We would have had it up on Saturday but I had to go and get sick!  Oh well, we will begin that tradtion next year.  We had a lot of fun putting up the tree!  Brailyn just stared at it as we put it up!  She helped hang some ornaments, and she handed mommy the ornaments when she got tired of standing up by the tree!  I made sure the whole bottom half of the tree was decorated with plastic ornaments! HA   Brailyn got to hang her very first ornamnet, that we got her last year, on the tree and she helped daddy put the angel on top!  We plan on buying her an ornament every year!  One of her very own!  I already know which one we are getting for her this year!  I'll post pics as soon as we get it!  In my mind we were going to have Christmas music playing in the background while we worked, but we got our new season of JAG in that day so we had it going!  Another tradition we will have to start next year! LOL  We had a very memorable night to say the least!  I know I will always cherish every memory we make no matter if it was what I had envisioned!  Anyway, we got everything up and decorated except for the outside lights which will be going up shortly!  I can't wait till Brailyn sees them!  Let me share some of our precious picture memories with you!

Helping mommy hang the first ornament!



Clapping for herself! HA



Handing mommy the beautiful PLASTIC ornaments!



Hanging her "First Christmas" ornament!  Don't look to close at mommy, I didn't get dressed up for the occasion!



My sweet girl!  Looking at an ornament she got at one of her baby showers!

Putting the angel on with daddy!

My curious girl!  So far, she won't pull them off the tree!



She likes to crawl behind the tree!

We have had a busy little week!  Brailyn also rode in her first parade last night!  Our church always does a float in the Christmas parade, so of course we had to ride!  We got all dressed up as a little cowgirl(because that was the theme) and took a ride!  She was too precious!  She was waving at the people and everything!  Such a little ham!  And to top it all off, our float won 1st place!  Go Shady Grove!



Mommy and Brailyn!  These are the best pics we get nowadays with our little busy, curious girl!



At the end of the parade!  Look at her little boots!  We had a lot of fun!

 We have already had so much fun with Christmas this year and Christmas day is still 22 days away!  I hope Brailyn always remembers and cherishes our Christmases together, but my biggest prayer is that we show her the real meaning of Christmas, Jesus Christ our Lord!  We would have nothing to celebrate if it wasn't for Him!  I pray that every year, we emphasize that more than the secular things that come with Christmas!  They may be fun, but nothing can give us joy like the real meaning of Christmas!