Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween

We enjoyed a fun Halloween together this year! Brian finds it hard to believe that he has been home for the past 4 Halloweens. Before that he was either in the field training or deployed for almost every single Halloween since he joined the Army!

This year Brayden was Clifford the Big Red Dog. McKenna was a snowman. She did also have a skeleton outfit she wore to a party! We thought the snowman outfit would be too warm for the party!

Brayden really got into his costume. He kept wanting us to say "Come on Clifford, Let's go".
One day we were getting ready to take Blizzard on a walk to the baseball field so she could play ball. Brayden told us that Clifford wanted to go on a walk too and insisted on putting on his costume. So, being the nice parents we are, we let him. He even wanted Clifford to fetch balls with Blizzard at the ball field. He even barked while wearing his Clifford costume! So much fun!

McKenna did a great job being a snowman. She was quiet and sat very still. She did almost melt, being that we are in California and it was quite warm for the end of October! A few people even gave Brayden candy for McKenna and told him he could eat it for her! Thanks!






The community where we live held a Halloween party for the kids this weekend. There were crafts, games, food, costume contests, pumpkin decorating, etc. Brayden make a halloween craft with foam stickers, Brian decorated a pumpkin (for Brayden!), we ate, and enjoyed the company of our neighbors!


Traditions are important...so here are a few of ours....

Pumpkin carving-We went to Safeway and let Brayden pick out some pumpkins.
Then we decided to let Brayden decide what kind of faces he wanted...the kid is an overachiever! He chose Lightning McQueen, Clifford, and Elmo. We talked him out of Elmo and into a plain jack o lantern because Brian didn't want that much work. Turns out we should have talked him out of Lightning McQueen and let him have Elmo! Brayden loved the pumpkins and in the end that was what mattered! We told Brayden he could help carve by cleaning out the gunk from inside the pumpkins! He started to clean the first pumpkin and after two scoops told us "Too hard for Brayden, Mommy do it"







Pizza for dinner-this was a new tradition this year. We went to Papa Murphy's and got one of their Jack o Lantern pizzas. So simple, yet so impressive to a 2 year old!




Trick or Treating-After a long day of playing, Brayden was tired out. He fell asleep watching the World Series! I think he was just warming of for Trick or Treating, he needed some extra energy. After his power nap, he got all transformed into Clifford. Once dressed in his costume, he saw no need to wait and thought we should go now...he had a hard time waiting for mom, dad, and sister to get ready! Brayden loved trick or treating (except at the "loud" houses..those would be the ones that were playing scary music and had lots of scary decorations). He was very polite and told everyone thank you and goodnight! When he got home, we let him have a couple pieces of his candy and then it was time to say goodbye to daddy because he had to leave to go to Reno for the next week for work. After daddy left, we headed to the bath and to bed!






Now we are excited to have YaYa come visit on Thursday!!!

Happy Halloween to everyone!


March 29, 2010

Spring Break 2010

Brian had a week off in March during the University's Spring Break. We had been talking about going to San Diego to go to Sea World because they have the "Here's to the Hero's" program, where they offer free admission to any Sea World or Busch Gardens park to military members and their families. Since we are so close now and don't know where we will be heading next year, we decided to take Spring Break and have a family vacation to San Diego.

We got to see Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, Legoland, the San Diego Wild Animal Park, and the beach. I think our favorite of all the places was the Wild Animal Park. Sea World was very neat also! We were disappointed with Legoland and probably wouldn't go back, at least until Brayden was much older! He was too little to go on most things, but he seemed to enjoy playing at the water park there and seeing all the cars built out of legos! He did love the boat ride he got to go on there.

It was a very fun trip and we had a great time! I will add pictures and posts from each place, so you can enjoy our fun as well! I have some videos, but look for those later in the week, as I need to find the cord to connect the video camera to the computer!

San Diego Zoo

Our first stop in San Diego was the San Diego Zoo! After the airport, we got our rental car, headed to the navy base to get lunch and get a few things at the PX and then headed to the zoo. Brayden loves going to the zoo and seeing all the animals, especially the giraffes! We had to make sure we found the giraffes. The zoo is very big, so we didn't get to see all of it since we arrived midafternoon. We did make it to the giraffes, the petting zoo, the bird aviary, the kids area, and several other animals! The San Diego zoo supports our active duty military with free admission to the zoo and 10 % off for family members, so if any fellow service members are ever in San Diego, take advantage!!


Brayden hanging out in his wagon....over the course of our trip, I think 50 people must have asked where we got this foldable wagon! It is AWESOME!!Thanks YaYa!
I believe you can find them on Amazon.com


Looking at the birds!


Mom trying to hold onto Brayden as he tries to escape to get to the giraffes!
So much for a nice picture!


Petting goats at the petting zoo


Brayden was exhausted after his busy day! He hasn't slept a night since without his giraffe that he got at the zoo!