A Little Denver Christmas

My mom, Brandon and I made the treck to Denver last weekend to see my Sister, Shawn and my Dad (unfortunately the trip was bad timing, he was on call all weekend, so B didn't get to see much of his grandpa this time). We spent the weekend eating, drinking Bloody Mary's, sitting around while Brandon napped, and eating some more. It was the most laid back trips to Denver I've ever had but it was nice to just hang out.

On Saturday night we all went out for dinner for Amy's birthday dinner/Christmas get together at Angelo's in Denver. "We" meaning, Shawn's parents, his brother and his girlfriend, along with Mitch's brother Blaine, my parents and Amy and Shawn all drank wine, ate pizza and had really nice time :) Brandon had apple juice and ravioli...Mmmmm!

After dinner my mom, Amy, Shawn, Blaine, Brandon and I all went to the Botanical Gardens to see the Christmas lights. It was so amazing! Brandon loved looking at all of the lights and we had such a great time.

Our trip to Denver was much too short, as usual. We'll make a trip down this summer and take B to the zoo :)

My Little Sous Chef

About a month or so ago, Brandon started to get really mad at me when I'd set him on the floor while I was cooking dinner. He wants to be up by me watching everything I'm doing, but sometimes it's not always possible with boiling water, splattering oil while cooking meat or there's just too many burners on. If he is down on the floor, he just screams at me and pulls on the oven door. And when there's something cooking in the oven, that's not a good thing, obviously.

So to avoid any tantrums or burns, the other night I let me him help me make dinner. He loooooved it! He helped me "stir", watched me while I add things here and there and then decided he was done helping and eating was the better option...

Happy to help! And no, the pan is not hot, it was just a little warm on the bottom.

Hmmm....this looks tastey!

Dippin' into the cheese.

What a BIG help :)

Oh Life....

So a few days back I was writing a post for my blog about all of the cute and adorable things our son is doing, and when I tried to upload pictures, it told me that all of my 1 GB of picture storage is used up and if I want more storage, I have to buy it. I tried deleting some of the pictures out of it, but then it deleted the pictures from older posts, and I don't want to do that. The whole purpose of me writing this blog is to look back at all of our pictures and have Brandon see it all. So I haven't decided if I want to start a whole new blog so I can add the pictures or what Im going to do. But for now, you'll just get picturelss posts from me :)

Brandon has been helping me cook (which are the pictures I tried to upload that wouldn't work) and he's learning new exciting things everyday like when his sippy cup is empty, he finds his mom and hands her the empty cup to fill up again :)

Hopefully I can get this picture situation figured out fast!

Story Book Island

Since it was going to be a nice weekend, we decided it would be fun for us all to take Brandon and Archer to Story Book Island to look at all of the Christmas lights. I have never done this before and I actually can't remember the last time I was at Story Book Island period. So it was fun to see it all over again, this time with Brandon and with all of the Christmas lights. They had everything blocked off so people couldn't go into the exhibits, but either way it was still fun! It made me excited to go there with Brandon this summer :)

With Kriste and Archer

...and the hat strikes again.

The boys with Santa! Brandon did surprisingly well.

He loved playing with all of the lights!

Good advice to follow :)

Big Boy Hair!

During the Thanksgiving weekend, Brandon got his first big boy haircut! Mitch's Aunt and Brandon's Godmother, Lisa trimmed up the back of his hair and around his ears to clean it up and tame it a bit. Brandon's hair, as most of you have seen, had a little Eintsein look going on in the back and it was so difficult to comb through. I was even having to put conditioner in it during his baths just so I could comb it out.

I have to admit, I was hesitant at cutting Brandon's hair. I wanted to see if it would get anymore curl to it and it was one more step to making my baby look like a big boy. However, I wanted his first haircut to be given by Lisa and it DID need some taming. So I gave in. It turned out FANTASTIC and I'm happy how it turned out!

Just combing out his hair and he's already skeptical

I had to keep feeding him whipped cream while he watched Elmo so he would keep his head facing forward.

Ummm...what is that thing?? It tickles!

It's Beginning To Look Alot Like Christmas!

Now that Thanksgiving has passed, we finally were able to put up our Christmas tree and decorations! We cranked up the Christmas music, had chilli in the crockpot and Brandon was able to (somewhat) participate in his own way. A pretty awesome night :)

When we first put up the tree, Brandon was pretty skeptical of the whole thing. But once we turned on the lights, he was sold! Now everytime we turn the tree on he makes a high pitched voice and says "Dee dee dee dee" and has a HUGE smile on his face. He loves it!

Not quite sure...

Getting acquainted with the Christmas Tree...

...slowly but surely.

Helping daddy decorate!

All done!
 

 Once the tree was up and Brandon got over his tree suspicion, we got to decorate the house. B wasn't too into this task because he was too busy trying to play with the box the decorations came in. Everything came out cute as always! Although, we had to get creative in where we hung the stockings...someone wouldn't leave them alone where we normally hang them. (Mitch just can't control himself...!)

I'm sure on Christmas Eve Santa will magically bring them down and fill them with presents :)

Our fur children like to think the door knob decorations are their toys...so instead of replacing more of them this year, they're now light fixture decorations.

Decorating my house for Christmas was my absolute FAVORITE thing to do when I was a kid. My mom, sister and I would go all out and make it look like Christmas exploded all over our house :) I loved it. I even risked my life and drove home from Spearfish in a blizzard one year just to help my mom decorate her Christmas tree. I don't know if that's just a "girl" thing but I hope that even though Brandon is a boy, he enjoys decorating our house for the holidays and that we create fun memories along the way.

Thanksgiving Round 2!

Thanksgiving this year was a little more exciting this time around. Don't get me wrong, last year was very special with it being Brandon's first Thanksgiving (I'm happy that Great Grandpa Schnaser was able to see that) but this year Brandon actually got to ENJOY what Thanksgiving as to offer :) He ate and ate and ate some more. Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravey, green bean casserole, stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn, beets, brown 'n serve rolls, pasta salad and lots of PIE!  I'm totally bummed that I didn't get any pictures of him actually eating his Thanksgiving dinners. Major fail. (Mom, where were you on that one?!) Kidding :)

First, we started our Thanksgiving at my grandma's house with my side of the family. We made our meal a lunch and had so much delicious food! We had an abundance of wine so we had a happy afternoon :) We started our meal off with some mulled spiced wine (best thing ever) and had ourselves a nice after dinner bottle of wine too! Thank you Prairie Berry.

After we ate, we played card games while Mitch and Brandon took a little snooze watching football. This I did get a picture of!

Around 4:00 we left my grandma's house and went to the Linster Thanksgiving. Mitch's Aunt and Uncle and Brandon's Godparents Lisa and Pete came from Minnesota and his other Aunt and Uncle Terry and Rodney came from Seattle. I was hungry again (to no surprise to anybody) for my Thanksgiving #2 and we had another declicios feast!

After we ate, Brandon got his birthday present from Pete and Lisa. Mitch, with a little help from Lisa, Blaine and Brandon, put it together and it kept B happy and busy for most of the night:

Big helper

 

Hoarding the tires!

 

Here, let me help you with that.

We put the bear in first because he was a little unsure of the whole idea.

Warming up to the idea :)

Need a little milk break. No drinking and driving!

Yes, my child is pantless due to blowout #2 of the day. Fun.

I love Thanksgiving because it gives everyone a  moment to look around and see what really matters in life. I'm thankful for this healthy, happy little man, his daddy, my entire family (on every side I have!), a roof over our heads, good health and all of the frilly extras that we don't need but have. I'm thankful for everyone of you and couldn't ask for better people in my life!