An introduction to VG's

What first birthday would be complete without a cake from VG's. Since Tony and I proved we are not cupcake designers nor frosting makers at his birthday party we thought we better leave it to the professionals for a mini celebration on his actual birthday. They had super cute turkey cupcakes for sale that day and could not resist.

Happy birthday to you.....Modest but loving all of the fanfare even after a couple of minutes.

Finally getting down to business.
The post party scrub down. 6 hands we needed to hose him down. I never realized how greasy and shiny VG's frosting is. Lard????? I hope not.
A successful attempt at converting to the sippy cup. Must be the big boy shoes.

Happy Birthday Brayden

We had lots of fun with Grandma Wendy and Mark this week. It is still hard to believe tomorrow my baby will be turning 1. He started taking his first steps this week and progressed to walking from room to room. Playing at the park in Leucadia with Grandma Wendy.
Playing with new birthday presents.

Learning to open packages with some asistance. Thanks Aunt Donna.

Celebrating with friends.

Here he is just a few days old.
Happy birthday Brayden-We love you!!

Halloween Fun

We had lots of fun last night walking around "Pumpkin Alley" downtown Encinitas last night. We got to see lots of friends and eat lots of candy. It was a great night.

Preview of chicken costume.

Pre- party mac-n-cheese dinner at our spooky table.

Fueling up for the big festivites. Tony and I went as chicken farmers. Braydens costume was not suitable for the 70 degree plus weather. The chicken body came off mid trick or treat. The pants did not last long after that.



A fun photo from lat weeks spooktactular at Sea World. No surprise the costumes were shed quickly. Pictured is Lily ( who was briefly a giraffe), Evan who manged stayed in cowboy flair, and Brayden ( who was briefly an owl)

The pumpkin patch

The Pumpkin patch has sure evolved- Carnival rides, $20 pumpkins, petting zoo, snack bar. Still lots of fun and gets and makes it official that summer is over. Happy 11 months Brayden! Chugga chugga choo choo.....

Hooray for hay.
Here is the only pumpkin we ended up coming home with that afternoon. We hope everyone had a nice weekend. We sure did. Pumpkin patch visit, Sea World Spooktactuar, and Great Grandma's 86 th birthday. That is one action packed weekend for a very lucky and fun 11 month old.

Family Photo

I was wanting a family photo for Brayden's baptism yesterday. The result was not quite what I had in mind but very us none the less- casual and kooky. Note to self- Try dress clothes on before you dress him in the car. Or even easier, bring a back up outfit.
Posing with uncle Jason
And here is how Christening parties progress in out house......


No Grandma.... Halloween is not for another 2 weeks.

Partied out. No nap until 2:30.

Playing catch up

After a long battle with the trojan virus our computer is finally working. Never let your antivirus protection lapse. I hit remind me later one too many times and have paid the price.

Update- Tony did not win the Cosmic Creek challenge but had fun trying. Maybe next year. We are busy getting ready for Brayden's baptism on Sunday. Not too sure how 30 people will fit in our house but it will be fun trying.






Lotsa drool!



























Fighting over the car with the friend and birthday girl Lily. The Birthday girl won of course.
















Helping dad install the sink at the cabin in big bear. It was cold. So cold Brayden had to wear mittens to crawl around and Tony is in shorts like it is summer. Don't ask.


































Here is my quilt and matching pillows. It will work for now. Maybe after my Halloween and Christmas projects are finished I will circle back and re-do the binding. Or maybe I will make a new one that is not so heavy. I like that idea better.







































Tony sporting new moustache and Brayden at the surf contest.
I hope everyone has a nice weekend. I will post photos of the baptism and overstuffed house on Sunday.

Semi-Finalist

Today we had lots of fun at the Cosmic Creek Challenge at Salt Creek. Tony advanced to tomorrows semi-finals. I think he is still surprised since it is not his home turf and you draw cards to select out of a quiver of boards of their choosing to ride. After some belly aching over the entry free and comments of crappy surf, he paid the fee and commited to it. I enter 5k's with the same thought in my head. Why am I paying $25 to run? But I am always glad I did. Brayden had fun too- lots of minis running around and lots of sand to eat.
So we are at home tonight after a failed attempt to watch a surf movie at Patagonia . We had a little friend who was not up for waiting 45 minutes in line for the movie to start. Instead Tony is watching surf movies here tonight. He has lots to choose from. We must have at least 75- no joke. I have dug out the bead box...or boxes I should say and have started a few jewlery pieces.


I love sand!

Happy 10 months

Today we celebrated Braydens 10 month birthday by a trip to Sea World to visit elmo. Here he is at breakfast this morning eating Peanut Butter and toast. A no-no until 1 year I hear, but he loved it. And actually he has had it a couple of times before.

Sewing machine update! I finally bought one! It does lots of fancy stitches and tricks. I finished my Hawaiian patchwork quilt. No photo yet since I am very unhappy with my binding. Definitely not the heirloom quality I learned in my class. It was a quick,I am over this quilt finish. I quickly grew tired of the thing after I attached the back and realized the thing weighs was too much. Not quite the quilt you want to snuggle on the couch with. It is more like the quilt you display on the bed and don't use. Think x-ray blanket heavy. Maybe a photo show up soon. I want to make a couple of matching pillows. Not like it will hide the ugly binding but maybe make me more motivated to display it. I also rushed to finish it quickly since I told myself I cannot start any Halloween projects until I finish the quilt. I did made a cute little Halloween treat bag last night. I know what you are thinking- Brayden can't even walk yet so why are you waisting time sewing making him a treat bag? Answer: I liked the ghost ones at PB kids so I decided to try and make something similar. I kinda like it. Maybe we can teach him to use it to crawl around an pick up toys.

Waking up with the roosters

Brayden fits in very well with us. He likes to get up early. It has been extra still dark outside early over the past couple of weeks. This has worked out very well since interest rates have been changing by the nano second.and my job is quickly becoming very very busy. He has played in his crib, played in our room, had breakfast, changed out of PJ's and is pretty much ready for his first nap shortly after the market opens. While 5:45 a.m. is a bit early, it sure has been nice since both Tony and I have been bombarded with work.












Eating a baked treat from Grandma Wendy for breakfast. Still dark outside.







Brushing teeth in the morning. Still dark outside. Tony is still half asleep.

This picture has nothing to with my waking up early rant. I love this picture. My mom shielding herself against every last UV ray of the day and Brayden sporting no pants. This was taken at Cardiff Reef a few night ago after dinner. My mom is so fun and crazy, Brayden loves being around her. She is very very good to us.

9 well almost 9 1/2 months

Here are a couple of photo's of the Williams white trash party a couple of weeks ago. We will definitely have to put more effort into our attire for next year. Pigtails and overalls did not quite cut it. Congrats to Anne and Robbie expecting #4!!!

I have been lazy about posting anything lately and Brayden's 9 month birthday has come and went. We have been busy trying to find a new place to live. It remains to be seen if we will rent again or buy again. The rental options are not that appealing and prices in neighborhoods we love are still too high. We are just glad to be in a position to make that choice and not be stuck in our old condo owing more than it would be worth now.

Brayden is on the go. Army crawling and pulling himself up on everything. Still very little hair. Maybe next month.

Summer fun

Summer is just whizzing right along. We have been trying to enjoy as much of it as we can. This last week has been fun being a tourist in our own town. Last night Taste of Mainstreet was super fun. Lots of new places to try. This week we also took our barbecue down to Seaside and had dinner. Something we don't do ofter enough.













Hooray for Tony who just passed his contractor license exam. Now once he pays lots of money and obtains all kids of insurance he will be on his way to being a full fledged general contractor.

Next up this week- attempting to make the yummy pretzel dessert ice cream Agatha made at Bunco last month with my new ice cream maker ( picked up a garage sale of course). Hopefully more dinners at the beach and picking up my new sewing machine. Once I can decide which one to buy. I have narrowed it down to 2. I have a almost finished quilt that needs bias sewn on and a pending bird costume to make.



Since Brayden is climbing and scooting around I have recently found that we change more diapers upside down / standing up.

# of diapers changed today face up=0

# of diapers changed today while standing =2

# of diapers changed while crawling = 3

family vacation

Our first family road trip was a great success. We got to stop at lots of fun places and got to spend a lot of time with Tony's uncle Brad and aunt Janet. Here are some highights.





Lunch in Cambria










Riding the space shuttle at Pea Soup Andersons in Buellton. Someone thinks they are hot stuff.




Hanging out in Morro Bay


Swimming in the pool at Brad and Janets.

8 months and 1 day

Yesterday our little man turned 8 months. The milestone was marked with an unfortunate round of immunizations at the same time as 3 teeth are coming in. He complains very little and still manages to be in good spirits...most of the time. We are truly blessed to have such a healthy happy baby. Today we had a great day enjoying the beach and running errands around town. It was fun to try out the new bike trailer. We hope to log many miles on it this summer.

Waiting in line to fill up at Costco & later on early evening walk to the beach.