Favorite Christmas Pictures (So Far!)

Brady carries a little orange ball around all the time!  When I pushed him in the stroller to take Tyler to school today, he held the ball the entire time.  I love watching him crawl while holding the ball.  :-)  If I am taking pictures of him, there is a very good chance that my camera lens will be in his other hand!

It was so much fun to decorate our Christmas tree with Tyler this year!  He loves to decorate one side of the tree with all of his favorite ornaments.  (He especially likes all of the bear ornaments that my Uncle Dave and Aunt Alethea have sent him over the years.)  One of my favorite quotes of his while we were decorating was, "Revolutionary Guy...kinda Christmasy."  (He said this while adding some lego guys underneath the tree, and he even put a santa hat on Darth Vadar's head!)  We always include his badly broken Captain America ornament.  When he went to place a heart ornament on the tree, he said, "I'll put that next to Captain America so he gets some love."  :-)

I can always count on my Tyler to say something funny and adorable!  During a particularly long and exhausting day a few weeks ago, I stood in our kitchen with Dan and said, "I need a trip to Aruba."  Tyler, who was watching tv in the connecting room, immediately chimed in and said, "But I'll miss you!  And you need to nurse Brady!"

:-)

Family Photos

We are so, so happy with our family photos!!  This was our first professional photo shoot as a family of four, and I'm not sure when our next one will be.  After Christmas, I plan to buy lots of frames to make a collage of our favorite photos.

I was amazed by how many great shots our photographer managed to get of Tyler.  Of course it's too hard to be cooperative the entire time...

In our kitchen, we have a framed photo of my mom holding me when I was a baby.  It is my favorite photo of her and I have always wanted to have a photo of me as a mom that I loved as much as that one.  So when I saw that our photographer had captured a picture of me, Brady, & Tyler that I loved, I was so, so happy!  I hope my boys have a copy of it in their homes when they are grown up!  I love having the two photos side by side in our kitchen now.  :-)

Date Night With Tyler

Tyler and I went on a date to see our friends Christa, Dylan, Reed, & Lily perform in The Nutcracker.  We'd been talking about our big night for a week, so when Tyler woke up the morning of the show, he said, "It's date day!"  When I told him that we needed to get dressed up to go to a special show, he said, "I wanna wear my Carolina Panthers shirt."  When I said no, he said, "I wanna look like a regular, normal person...not someone who goes in a taxi to a wedding."  He is sooo funny! :-)  He loved seeing the high school where he will go one day, and was thrilled to see a picture of a panther on display.  :-)  We had a great time and I know Brady enjoyed one on one time with Dan while we were gone!  :-)