My Christmas Toy

At the risk of sounding more fruity that most of you already know I am, I have to confess that I'm in love... with this vacuum! Now that we've become real people living in a real house with lots of carpet to vacuum, it was high time we chunked our Target-special purchased for cheap 5 years ago and replace it with a winner. And that winner is the beauty to the left -- a Consumer Reports #1 -- that has me extremely excited to clean the house. This puppy runs quietly and powerfully and has a true HEPA filter (which means absolutely no weird vacuum smell) -- and as if that wasn't enough, it has a sensor on it that tells you when the carpet is clean! Yes... I'm serious. There's a light on the top that turns from red to orange to green when it's gotten the carpet completely clean. W-O-W. If you're in the market for a new toy, hook yourself up!

...pictures of Christmas coming right up. Promise!

A little help

This is just a quickie for the Monday of Christmas week. Layna's still close to crawling (which means she's not crawling yet). BUT, we're working on it, and as you can see, she can get her belly off the floor! Brayden's been very supportive of her, cheering her on whenever she's giving it a go. Once Layna figures it out, I'll get some video up.

You can do it, Layna!

Simon Says

In case you're wondering, we're in Florida!! (where there's sunshine!!) BUT, since we're away from home, we aren't able to get new pictures up for you. So instead of delaying the fun of the blog, here's a great video shot last week of Brayden playing his new favorite game, Simon Says. Admittedly, you won't be able to understand most of what he's saying... but I'll clue you into the fact that it's about weather, so he'll clap like thunder, float like a cloud, do fingers like the rain, and howl like the wind. See if you can pick those up! ...the rest of the video is simply Brayden playing with Nicole. This is classic Brayden, and the laughter is fantastic!

A Merry Christmas to you!

From our family to yours, we wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Our sweets

Our sweet buggie

Christmas Lights

We're in Florida!! All I wanted for Christmas was a little sunshine... and we got it! Birmingham has been so gross and rainy for weeks that I was missing the sun. Apparently he's been in Florida this whole time!

Anyway, after dinner last night Mia and Poppy took us to look at some great Christmas lights in a local neighborhood... and B and Bug loved them! These weren't your run-of-the-mill decorations, they were over the top. Here are some of the pictures (taken with my phone, so they're only so good... sorry):

The crazy house -- lights everywhere!!

Brayden looking at the Christmas village (in their garage!)

...and across the street

Mama and Brayden with Santa Claus

Dad and Layna at yet another house!

The Nativity

Last year, I bought the most excellent Veggie Tales Nativity at the seminary bookstore in hopes that Brayden would enjoy playing with it this year... well, he certainly does! He thrilled to play with each of the characters, although he renamed a few of them. He'd like to introduce them to you!

And this one goes...

...right here!

La Posada

It's Christmastime, ya know... so let's get into the spirit. Saint Luke's has a very sweet tradition (actually, they borrowed it from an old Mexican tradition) of having the small children of the parish participate in La Posada. La Posada is a representation of the journey Joseph and Mary went on as they prepared for the birth of Jesus. At the beginning of Advent, statues of the two adult members of the Holy Family are processed out of the church and proceed to "spend the night" with a different family every night until they return to the church on Christmas Eve. We had one of the first nights, and Brayden was very funny with them...

I lay my hands upon you...

...think he's seen that a few too many times? It didn't take him long to get over their holiness and become just a friend visiting for the night!

A hat for Joseph

Our sick babies

It wasn't until after we had children that I found out how much of a germy mess they are. Our poor kids trade junk back and forth with all the other little germ-balls at day care. Layna's getting over an ear infection and Brayden's in the thick of a head cold. The poor guy's had a runny nose and been coughing all day. But on the bright side, he's almost flawlessly happy! Even in the bath, after a very long day of feeling cruddy, he's still excited to brush his teeth! Tonight, while he was brushing, he looked up at me and proudly announced, "I'm brushing my teeth all by myself!" How great is that?! Enjoy the action shot (even through the heavy eyes)!

All by myself!

Our Saturday with friends

We spent the afternoon with some of our friends, the Wrights. Brayden had a great time with their youngest son, JR (who was born only a couple weeks before Brayden). After lunch at our house, we headed out to one of our new favorite places in Trussville -- Lightning Strikes bowling alley.

Brayden was psyched to go, but he was even more excited to dance to the music while we were there! Here he is, dancing like he's on top of a bar, cheering for everyone as they bowled:

Jammin' at the alley

As I mentioned above, Brayden loved hanging out with his friend, JR. Here they are playing in the booth behind our lane:

An interesting place to have dinner...

Around The House - Part IV

Have I ever told you how much Nicole loves chocolate cake? Let me count the ways... Chocolate cake is her absolute favorite dessert (particularly if it has some warm fudgy part to it). Brayden has apparently inherited her love:

Let me eat cake!

This final installment of unrelated holiday commentary will focus on the greatness that is Santa Claus. We've introduced Santa Claus to Brayden this year, but it's struck me as a very odd concept to communicate to someone who doesn't have any background with the 'ole boy. How do you communicate the idea that a heavy-set fellow brings gifts to you at Christmas? I've found this idea harder to articulate than I expected... which means that I don't think Brayden gets it. Perhaps he's simply not old enough, but he certainly doesn't have any anticipation of Christmas as a day to score greatness (like what I had as a child). His lack of anticipation and enthusiasm about it is a great reminder of what's most important about this season ...and it's not the gifts, friends.

Around The House - Part III

Layna's almost crawling... holy crap it's about time! Although it's fun to only have one kid on the move, we're reaching a critical point when the little dear should be shuttling her booty around the place. I think she's finally gotten frustrated enough to go on the move. We'll try to get it on video soon!

My buggie's getting close!

I was talking with some parents the other day who have kids about Brayden's age and they were telling me what their kids want for Christmas. What? Their kids want things for Christmas? Brayden hardly knows what Christmas is, let alone knowing to ask for stuff for Christmas! Then it dawned on me, Brayden never sees commercials! ...and neither do we! ...and what a gift that is! I've loved DVRs for quite some time and appreciated them for many reasons, but I was intensely appreciative of this beautiful invention when I realized that my kids aren't becoming victims of the wildly effective marketing that clever companies employ to create mega-kiddie-consumers. Whew!

Around The House - Part II

It's time for the second in our 4-part series. This picture highlights Brayden's desire to walk around in shoes that are too big for him. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of him in Nicole's heels. That's quite the sight. The funniest thing about the heels is that he can legitimately walk around in them -- and up the stairs! I'll try to catch him soon!

Until then, we'll have to settle for a picture in Nic's sneakers:

Mama -- do you know where your shoes are?

Happy Second Sunday of Advent, bloggers. Today I'd like to comment on the seemingly dangerous phenomenon of random holiday food. I don't know about you, but my office gets a lot of foodie gifts this time of year, many of which are anonymous. It occurs to me that we never let our children eat unwrapped food from strangers on Halloween, but when that yummy looking nut-spice-gooey-bread-cake is plopped down in the kitchen, wrapped in a pretty holiday cellophane, we don't hesitate to take a chunk. Food for thought...

Around The House - Part I

I have a few pictures to share that I thought were great, but they really don't go with each other. So instead of fabricating some random story, I thought I'd just post one a day for four days (with unrelated holiday commentary).

Here we go -- this is a picture to show off Brayden's newest skill: his whole name! Nicole just happened to mention to B that his first name was Brayden and last name was Girata. That just took root and Brayden was ready to spell it. After just once through, he was hooked and could spell it from memory (and I know that's not something a cartoon taught him!).

What's your last name?

As promised, it's time for some unrelated holiday commentary... At the risk of offending some of our readers, I can't help but call for an end to inflatable Christmas yard decor. I simply don't think it's necessary to have Santa and his little penguin friend in a fake snowglobe that you blow up and put in your front yard. I simply draw the line with other characters that light up... even the ones that move. Just leave it there.

Grand-Roenicks

We had great fun with the Roenicks over Thanksgiving and I wanted to put up some pictures with them before we get too far from the holiday. They played a lot over the weekend (and at least once I had my camera handy!).

Mia and Poppy with the kiddos

Layna loved the quality time with her Mia...

Mia with her little princess

...and her Poppy!

Poppy's funny!

As always, Brayden loved his reading time -- and Mia made it even better!

Super reading

Thanksgiving Outing

What do you do with a couple of little kids over a Thanksgiving weekend that's cold and rainy? ...go bowling! This was the kids' first bowling adventure, and they loved it! Brayden ran right up to the balls and wanted to play. Once we showed him how to bowl, he was hooked!

First, he bowled with me...

Say hello to my little friend

Look at that speed!

...then with Nic.

Hurry Mama!

He danced the ball all the way down the lane!

Brayden wasn't the only one who enjoyed the bowling alley -- Layna got some yummy snacks, too!

Double-fisting!

And we couldn't resist a shoe-shot of the boys (aren't Brayden's shoes great?!):

They won't be that small for long...