It's my party...

For the big birthday party we had a "YAY Bradley's 1!! (and oh yeah, Kevin is 29) Party!" :) Everything was YAY Bradley, oh yeah - and Kevin. We had BIG "1"s hanging from the ceiling everywhere, along with smaller "29"s, and we had a birthday cake with Bradley's wonderful picture on it and Kevin was small and dark in the background. It was very funny :) It was a great party, I was worried because Mr Bradley gets a little anxious around big groups of people, especially when he's the center of attention and he doesn't know everyone - but he did great - all the way until the cake :)

First - let me tell you - months ago when we were planning this party, Kevin and I were throwing out ideas about how they should wear matching shirts and hats, and open presents together and do everything together, and I promise he said, "Yeah, and when Bradley goes to get ready for the cake and he strips down to his diaper - I should strip down too!" Well - I thought that was a great idea and added it to my agenda. So months later I am ordering the cakes and I remember this plan and get Kevin a little cake of his own and reminded him of the plan. "NO WAY! No way am I doing that Heidi - how embarrassing!" But I kept reminding him that it was actually his idea :) I told Tammy and Mindy the plan and told them to convince him and even at the party he was refusing but must have given into wife-pressure at the last minute, because he did it and it was adorable! And as much as he fought it - he had so much fun with it :) I sure love my boys!!! :)

Anyways - Mr Bradley does not like getting his hands dirty too much, so he wasn't the biggest fan of the cake - and then you add a dozen people staring at him, laughing, and taking pictures - it was all a little too much for the guy :)

I hope he enjoyed his first birthday - I think the party turned out great, it was so nice of everyone to come and celebrate with us.

Then later on in the night, after his nap, we took some more pictures with his birthday hat, some funny pictures, and with his balloons - he absolutely loves the Goodnight Moon book, and his favorite part of it is the red balloon - anytime you turn to a page with it on there, he points and says "oooo", it's so cute - so even though everything about the party was dark and light blue - we had to throw one red balloon in there :)

Is this little toddler really my baby boy???! I'm so in denial that he's so big already! It seems like yesterday that I was giving birth and yet I feel like I don't remember a time that he wasn't with me...

Birthday Boys

On December 19th Kevin turned 29 and Bradley turned 1! I made them shirts that said "Birthday Man" and "Birthday Boy" and we spent a nice day together. We went to Old Chicago for lunch (Kevin's choice, not Bradley's :) ) And Mr Bradley had his first taste of ice cream - didn't care for it too much as you can tell! But he sure loved his dinner and was just SO excited that it was his birthday! He must have known! :) Then he was pretty wiped out after a long birthday-day :)

Happy Birthday

Just a quick post to say Happy Birthday to my beautiful baby boy and my wonderful husband! (More to come later!)

Happy Birthday Mindy

Mindy turned the BIG 30 on December 7th! We all went out for a nice dinner at Texas Roadhouse.The week before Mindy was starting to freak out about turning 30 but I think she finally came to terms and had a good day :) But now whenever she does anything I act surprised and ask her, "People still do that after 30?!?" She got a cold sore on her lip the day after she turned 30 and we both decided that it's because she's falling apart now that she's not in her young 20's anymore :) Haha! :) I'm not that far behind you big sister!! :) Love you! :)

Ugliest Christmas Sweater Party

JK and I held an "Ugliest Christmas Sweater Party" last weekend and it was a big success! I've never had one of these before and it was just a blast. Grady and JK even had flashing lights and their sweaters. And Scott went all out!! I had so much fun. I was going more towards corny than ugly, I wanted the 3 of our sweaters to match, so I got plain sweaters and sewed stuff on them. I tried to make the appliques 3D by stuffing them but it kind of looked weird on, and was very lopsided :) I also sewed the big bows on, but with Bradley you can imagine how long those stayed on :) He was actually very good with his own, as long as he was crawling around and keeping busy he forgot about his, but we couldn't hold him without him tugging at ours - he ripped Kevin's off in a matter of minutes :) I can only imagine how long our tree decorations are going to last - at least on the bottom 2 feet :)

Snow Snow Snow!

Yay horray for snow! :) I think a lifelong goal of mine is to try to make Kevin appreciate snow :) A say it's a lifelong goal because for the 10 years that we've been together, 10 winters I have said over and over "Yay - don't you like snow, look how pretty, look how fun, look how cozy" and yet the minute Kevin looks outside the window and sees snow - he starts grumbling! Oh well, I'll just keep trying, maybe out of nowhere one of these years he'll learn to love it - maybe Bradley will help him with that. He looks so darn cute in his coat and hats and he sure loves his gloves - the second you put them on he starts clapping and smiling :) He hasn't played in the snow yet - here's him staring at the pretty snow from the window I opened the door and put some snow on his hands and he didn't seem to like that too much. We didn't go outside because I didn't want Kevin to miss his first time in the snow (he was at work) so Bradley has yet to have his first snow experience :)

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at our house this year. Food was great, the company was even better!! And that's saying a lot because I sure love my mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy! (Did you know that that's the only food that tastes good mixed together - everything else should never touch on the plate - just so you know :))

I don't know what they were looking at, but it was funnier than the camera I guess! I have about 15 other pictures I took of them looking at the camera and couldn't get 3 smiles in one of them :)(notice the finger - pointing as usual!) :)
That same day, Bradley learned to climb stairs :) For some reason I was routing him on, which is weird because I know that's not a good thing for him to be doing, but it was an accomplishment none-the-less! Now I have to go out and buy another gate for the bottom of those stairs because he sure books it over there as soon as he gets the chance!

I have so much to be thankful for, and I thank God everyday for everyone and everything I have in my life. We are very blessed and I know it. We've been trying for several months now for another baby, and I'm getting the impression that it might take a while again, but I think back on how I would pray every night for a baby and God answered my prayers with Mr Bradley. We hope that someday we can give him a brother or sister, but Kevin and I have discussed that if we could never get pregnant again - it would be ok, because we know what a blessing Bradley is and we are so so very thankful for him!!

It was the best Thanksgiving I've ever had, and Bradley's first Thanksgiving (I'm thinking that's not a coincidence!)