The busiest weekend I've had in a while, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Brayden!

We made it through our crazy weekend!  Let me just share the big things that were going on. . . Saturday- Messiah practice then dress rehearsal/performance for those without tickets during the day and the Ward Christmas party that night.

Sunday- Speak at a small branch about 30 minutes away, take treats to Brayden's nursery friends, ward choir practice, BRAYDEN's BIRTHDAY!!, The Messiah performance, and taking the harp for prelude/postlude music.

It's harder to put into perspective the business when you just read it, but take my word for it that it was packed and I was slightly worried that Brayden would get slighted of birthday fun again this year.  Luckily, thanks to a lot of prayers and faith, I was not stressed all weekend!!  Even though between the big events we had to find time for writing talks, getting birthday stuff ready and all the normal little things, it all worked out very nicely.

My favorite moment of the weekend was Brayden's excited face when he came out to find his presents on the table (that's how we've been doing it) and the joy he got from each one.  We didn't actually open them until after church since we were rushed to get out in time for our talks, but he didn't seem to mind.  He even loved the birthday cards and was excited about getting money!

My least favorite moment of the weekend was when Brayden tipped my harp over while I was grabbing the cover for it.  Yeah, not good.  But, it didn't break and I wasn't upset with him.  I was very blessed emotionally to not even be worried about it.  But I know it was a miracle that it survived with only a big scratch on the top.  Brayden was very distressed about it too, so I am extra grateful that I could worry more about him than the harp.  But it was still not my favorite time of the weekend.

Here's the pictures to enjoy!! 

 Brayden got a new McQueen shirt that he wore for the evening.  When I told him I was going to get a picture of it, he had me take a picture of his back first.  Then he said "another one" until I had taken 3 pictures of his back.  Then he let me see the shirt. :)  And I love how he stuck his belly out and everything to show it off.  Too silly and cute.

The one of his back does allow me to share another part of our Saturday - my not-so-great (to be nice to myself) haircut that I gave Brayden.  I just use scissors because our buzzer only has size 1 and 2, which is too short for my B. I cut it in the bathtub because it's easy cleanup, but this time I cut a chunk of the back way too short, so as you can see I had to attempt to even it out and it looks sort of awful.  even the top is not great.  I don't know why I struggled so much this time, but I kinda ruined his hair.  At least it grows back and he doesn't even have a clue.

 Brayden loved opening the cards and put his money in a little pile.  It was pretty cute.  He got a nice card and money from his Aunt Kim & Uncle Trip.  Another card and some more money from Grandma and Papa Brown.  And he got TWO birthday cards from great grandma C (a mistake I'm sure. . . we only plan to deposit one check). We gave him a fish that he has named Grandpa.  We added Grandpa Betta.  Haha.  We got him a new garage sale wardrobe too ;)  And his Grandy got him 4 toys!

He played with this gator golf for 20 minutes before he would open another gift.  He was very much in a gator golf zone.

 Birthday Breakfast dinner!! Since we didn't have time to do it in the morning, we got our yummy breakfast for dinner and invited Brayden's favorite friends. 

It turned out a great birthday for Brayden and a success in everything else!

Life at a Glance

How I have time to post right now, I'm still not sure.  The holiday stress has hit.  So much to do and time just keeps leaking away.  Thanks to Preston, Alisha Bell and mostly my dear Father in Heaven,  everything is under control for now and I am getting a lot done every day.  I just love crossing off my list!

At this point, I have to be realistic and accept the fact that I will never be posting all the posts I have envisioned in the last couple of months because there are always new things happening.  But, I can certainly try to post a few thoughts and memories mingled with pictures to catch up.  We'll start from now and see how far back we can get.  Get ready, because here I go.  And you know how picture crazy I can get!!

First of all, I have developed some unkind feelings toward HP printer ink.  I just bought new ink ($50 btw) using some of my "Angie's spending money" which I only get from birthdays, Christmas and garage sales, so it can get sparse.  But that's not the point.  The point is,  I buy it because I love printing things for visiting teaching and right now especially for Primary.  But, after printing 2 documents (with some little pitures. . . about 20 small ones total),  my printer was telling me my ink was almost out!!  Not to mention the brand new yellow ink wouldn't be accepted by the printer.  It said it was missing.  After several back and forth emails with HP they gave me some things to try and it did work.  So I printed one page of pictures on Saturday night and then a warning came up that yellow was almost empty.  Grrr...  here are those unkind feelings again.  I better stop.

On a happier note, I was able to order all our Christmas cards and 3 calendar gifts today all for $10 (+shipping) from a living social deal I purchased in October.  Can't beat that! 

Also happy, my house is actually festive this year!  We're never home on Christmas so we haven't ever set up outdoor lights here, but this year we bought a new pre-lit tree so we actually had enough lights to do decent decorating outside.  Despite the fact that there are 4 chunks of lights that are burned out, it looks really good at night!  It makes me happy.  Our tree is up and I like to burn Christmasy candles and it just makes me smile.  I love Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, here's some Christmas pancakes that Preston crafted for our Saturday night dinner.  There were trees, candy canes, and Santa hats.  We have had some fun culinary successes you can find below!

 

DECORATING FOR CHRISTMAS

We got all the lights outside (although a third is burned out. Haha) and set up inside too.  This is the day after Thanksgiving when we bought and set up our tree. The boys loved it!  Brayden couldn't fall asleep that night unless he was on the couch by the tree.  Hahaha.

 

THANKSGIVING

We had our friend family, The Bells, over and they made some amazing food to go along with ours.  It turned out delicious. And we used our fancy chargers and everything :)

Zander and Anson playing

We set up this puzzle over the weekend after Thanksgiving.  It's been a while since we did a puzzle, but it was fun! And I love Eric Dowdle puzzles/pictures.

Brayden playing the harp.  He tips it on his shoulder and everything!

FAMILY PHOTO SHOOT

We had a bright idea to sleepover at the Bell's house and then take each other's pictures the next day.  It was a ton of fun, but the kids were not in a picture mode.  So, Alisha did a great job capturing them on the go.

Just playin together

 Grandy was here to visit again and got to be here for Halloween.  She actually came to go to Universal and Disney with us one last time before our tickets expired in November.  We tried to go a bunch of times in October. 

Brayden likes to help out and was carrying the recycling bin back.

Pumpkin rice pudding. This was a fun thing to make, but it seemed like it was lacking some important flavor for rice pudding. I couldn't figure it out.  But it did look cool in the pumpkin!

 Just playing at the park!

 HALLOWEEN

I made some fun Halloween dinner.  Intestines and jello worms.  It was quite yummy actually.  The intestines are puff pastries filled with a ground pork filling with potato, carrot, onion and a tiny bit of sauces and seasonings. The jello worms are, well, jello.

Cute little couple, I mean friends.

One of our neighbor's built a "cemetery" in his driveway and yard.  It was pretty intense.  He said he just likes to do it. His birthday is Halloween and that's how he likes celebrating.

Tossing corn the neighbors set out for dear.

Pooped after trick-or-treating

 WARD FALL FESTIVAL

The Brown's pumpkin patch

Brayden's favorite ward person (one of them), Sister Delp.  He sits with her almost every week during Sacrament meeting lately. 

Our trunk for the trunk-or-treat.

 Another fun culinary success.  Spaghetti inside garlic bread.  Brayden had a lot of fun helping me (and stealing bites of course).  I hadn't even thought of it as a mummy, but then Brayden rolled some little dough pieces and told me they were for his eyes. Haha.  We had been talking about mummy's because of his shirt.  That might have had something to do with it.  Either way, it made for a cute day-before-Halloween meal.

The Mummy before baking

 ORLANDO

Like I said, my mom came so she could go to the theme parks with us one last time.  We always make the temple part of our Orlando visits too.

After I took the picture, Zander inched forward a bit more and then bent over to sniff and totally fell face first into the dirt because he was too close to the edge.  Poor guy.

Two cute boys!! Brayden was excited to smile for the camera at the promise of getting a treat in the car for it :)

The Toy Story Ride

On our way to Orlando we put a box of toys, books and snacks in between car seats so that the boys could help themselves.  It worked pretty well!

My toes. . . toes can be yucky I know, but I liked how I painted them :)  I couldn't decide which color, so I chose both!

 PLAYING AROUND

 ANOTHER TRIP TO UNIVERSAL

 Harry Potter's Hogwarts area is AMAZING!!!

 Friends

 THE REZ

There's a place here called the Reservation, but it's known as "The Rez."  They have a grad student party every year and this was it!  Fun fun.

The Bells again.  We love them.

They were cleaning up, but Brayden wanted a painted face too, so we said he could be Rudolph.

He loved it.

 MORE RANDOM CUTENESS

It started raining and Brayden wanted to go outside just to use an umbrella.  He is just too cute.

Matching boys.  Right before bath, but I had to get a picture since the onsie was basically too small for Zander to wear any more.