Santa Visit : Fail

Christmas is 10 days away! I feel like this holiday season is flying by and that makes me sad because this has been on the best ones we have had in years.

Last weekend was the weekend we all had free to take my nephew to see Santa. I think I was the most excited out of the group because I missed it last year. I basically had Elf-like Christmas excitement. Chris, eh, he went along with it but he said our kids will not be partaking in the Santa Claus tradition. I quickly googled why they should be able to and blew up his phone with links while we were in line. Mature, I know.

Mr. Brantley seemed excited at first. He was looking at the lights and Christmas trees and smiling and flirting with all the little girls in line. I thought, "He's a social boy. This will be great."

 It was finally our turn to see the man in red. Yay! But then, Santa had an allergic reaction to perfume and we had to wait until they could supply him with meds and water and he caught his breath. At this point, Brantley's patience was wavering. They opened the gate and my sister didn't even make it 5 feet away from Santa and Brantley started getting upset.

This is the picture we ended up going home with:

 

 

Yeah, he loved Santa and Chris tried to use that in his fight against the "lie" (his words). I will let you in on how I won that little battle later this week. 

Busy bee

So I did well during blogtober. Thanks to Helene and Taylor's awesome post ideas I stayed on track. Then November 1st rolled around. No one was here to supply ideas, our weekends were full and we are smack dab in the middle of the semester. I lost steam quickly.

In any spare moment I can grasp I work on school and stay glued to the computer. My husband finally broke my focus when he sent me a text saying "I miss you." I realized I had been putting everyone and everything first. Oops. Being a busy bee is not always a good thing.

So today I will be giving you a photo dump post of everything we have been doing.

My favorite boy in the whole world had his 1st birthday. We went with a ATV theme. Can you believe he is walking?! I feel like he was just entering the world and stealing our hearts.

We had a few bonfires with lots of wine and/or Fireball. (It depended on the week and the company) Yay for brisk fall nights!

We went mudding. Chris took this picture mid smirk. Thanks dear. Oh and this is after being sprayed off with the water hose. We were gross. 

 

 

Dear Brantley

Dear Brantley,
Just a quick catch up letter so 20 years from now you can see what life at 8 months was like and I can embarrass you in front of the ladies. That is going to be hard to do because you are the cutest baby ever. Seriously. Auntie Anna makes you model and this is what we get:

Perfection. The blue seat, matches you blue jean diaper, that matches those big blue eyes. 

These days you are crawling everywhere and pulling up on everything. Oh and everything has to go in your mouth. Sometimes that gets a little interesting and a little gross. The toys, your toes, the dogs ear.... 

This particular moment it was just your fingers. 

You love all things dangerous. The four wheeler and gator are 2 of your favorite things. You also enjoy your toy hammer because we tell you to be careful with it and the thrill of thinking it's dangerous makes you giggle. You also love your rattle cars. And this toy that says "shake it baby".  You like when we say silly things like, "big booty Judy" or "goofy baby" or "yummy". So random but you laugh uncontrollably.  

You have finally started eating solid food. Only took you eight months, but you decided it wasn't so bad and one of your first words was bite-bite. You can also say mama and "Gee" which is what you currently call dee-dee (nana). I hope the next word is auntie. 

You like to watch camping and farming videos with uncle Chris. You also like watching daddy and uncle Chris destroy I mean, work on things. Papa is one of your favorite people. Once he has you no one else gets a chance. You are one loved little boy. You keep us laughing and you keep us young and I love you to pieces. 

Love,
Auntie Mal

Brantley goes to Hearts and Flowers

As stressful as the holidays can be, the little traditions make it worth while. Every year we go to a little primitive decor store called Hearts and Flowers. We pick up Christmas decor and we each get an ornament.

We used to pack a picnic and go on a girls trip with our neighbors for a girl trip. They moved away and we decided to make it a family trip and the boys got to go. Sorry, Anne but you ditched! Come back!!

This year was baby Brantley's first trip. We decided to take a girl's day. I drove to mama's house and fed Brantley his bottle while everyone got ready. Then we were off!

We shopped and snacked on holiday cookies. We chatted with the owner's and shared that Brantley is the fifth generation to take part in the Hearts and Flowers tradition. They were thrilled! We picked out candles (my favorite is Cornbread and Honey) decor and ornanments and said our goodbyes promising to be back with all of the guys soon. We stopped on the bridge for a quick picture and then by the sign. Tradition!

On the way home we hit a few antique stores. I was a total nephew hog but hey, Anna gets to see him every day.We stopped at a little cafe on the way home and I didn't want the day to end. I cant wait to introduce him to more traditions, There is something so special about sharing them with the little ones.