Santa Claus is coming to town!

Today we went to Phipps Plaza in Buckhead to visit with Santa. He came all the way from the North Pole to see some adorable children today, including my two boys. John Brady had his Christmas list and had been talking about seeing him for a week. He was all smiles and all talk until he actually got in Santa's lap. He handed him his list but he wouldn't talk to him. Beckett, 6 months, did great but couldn't tell Santa what he needed but Santa told he had some special surprises for him.  John Brady asked Santa for a Thomas the Train set, a suitcase to take to visit his grandparents, books, DVD's, and Bama stuff.

Just like most things, the minute his time was up with Santa he wanted to go back and talk to him. Unfortunately, Santa had many other sweet boys and girls to visit with. Santa did tell us that they had been very good boys and their elf had reported only good things to him about their behavior at home. It should be a great Christmas at the Nichols house at this point. I hope they keep up the good behavior!

After our visit with Santa we went to eat at the Cheesecake Factory with Nanny and papa. John Brady loves their avocado spring rolls and he enjoyed a treat of kids chicken.

It was a fun afternoon with family...and as always those things bring tears to my eyes as another year has passed. I am so happy my parents could be there with us since Drew had to work. I  can't wait to see what Santa brings the family. I know it will be a lovely Christmas and I  will cherish every moment with my family! Merry Christmas to all!!

Beckett @ 6 months

Happy half birthday to my baby Beckett!

I can not believe that 6 months has passed and in 6 more he will be one! I don't know where the time has gone. I am thankful the sleepless nights are over with but sad to see him growing so fast. Watching your children grow and develop is such a bittersweet thing. 

Height: 28 inches(100%)

Weight: 24 lbs (100%)

Our visit with the doc at 6 months was a fast and easy apt. The doctor was still pleased with his development. He is able to roll both ways now, use rolling as a way of getting around , sit up on his own, and get up on all fours and rock( he is so ready to crawl). He can put weight on his legs well now and stand with support. He babbles as loud as ever and is a great sleeper and napper.

We can't leave anything in his reach because he will find a way to get it. Like JB, he likes remotes, ipad, iPhone, etc.

He eats: carrots, peas, green beans, corn, squash, sweet potatoes, apples, bananas, peaches, pears.
He eats all of them with no problem but we think he likes carrots and apples the best!
He eats at 6:00 every night and  then has his nighttime bottle at 7:30 before bed. 

In the last two months Beckett's development has really taken off. I cant imagine what all he will be doing the next time I post at 8 months!

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

We had a beautiful Thanksgiving with family and that's what it is all about. I enjoyed my morning at my parents house watching the parade and making breakfast with the family. W spent the day lounging around and preparing for dinner. Drew was working on Thanksgiving Day so we ate our meal when he got home. It was a non traditional meal that was much healthier than the usual. Organic baked chicken, brussel sprouts with shallots, twice baked stuffed sweet potatoes and homemade dresssing with mushrooms, celery, chestnuts, onions, etc. It was a great dinner!

We left the day after Thanksgiving for the lake house to meet up with Drew's parents, sisters and grandparents. It was the first time the grandparents got to meet Beckett.  It was the third time Lois had seen John Brady and the second time Bill got to see John Brady. When we arrived they had a fire roaring and the table decorated beautifully and the turkey was in the oven.

We enjoyed our weekend very much! I loved sitting by the fire with wine watching the grandparents and great grandparents play with the boys. It is nice to have that many hands to help out with the kids. It is like a mini vacation because John Brady wanted to play with all of them the whole time. He gathered sticks for the fire with his dad, played football with Hannah and Mark, colored and read with Stacy, etc. While we were there we also took John Brady to a farm with many animals, trains, Christmas trees, etc. 

Thanksgiving was a great time as always and I hope for many more beautiful memories with all of my family. 

.Happy Halloweenie.

Happy Halloween to you and yours!

This is Beckett's first Halloween and John Brady's third. This year, thanks to Pinterest, I decided to dress up JB as a football player and Beckett the football. It turned out very cute and inexpensive. We already had the jersey, turtleneck, eyeblack and Nike pants. He wanted to wear his new Georgia boots instead of tennis shoes...and I didn't bother arguing that. For Beckett we already had a brown long sleeve onesie and some white felt. I cut out felt to look like the football laces and sewed it on and boom we were done.

Drew worked on Halloween so we did a Halloween party for JB at the house. He trick or treated here several times and got a cookie once, a pack of m&m's, sports magazines, books, etc. He is obsessed with any Alabama magazines so he got a football program and some sports illustrated issues with Bama featured. He thought it was hilarious ringing the door bell and getting something in his bag and running around the house and doing it again. We opted to skip the downtown trick or treat because last year it was a zoo. We are excited to be in our new house next year because the neighborhood is perfect for things like trick or treat!

Also, to celebrate Halloween to went to our good friends house for a play date. The Savilles kindly invited us over for JB and Mallory to paint pumpkins, play outside, grill out, etc. The kids painted their pumpkins, played on her swing set, rode jb's four wheeler, etc. It was lots of fun as always!

Burt's Pumpkin Patch year II

This is our second year to visit the pumpkin patch. We left on Friday morning and headed for the farm.  It is located in Dawsonville and took about an hour and half. Once we arrived John Brady took off running to find some pumpkins. Beckett got pushed in the stroller while we searched for the pumpkins. John Brady enjoyed himself sitting on the tractors and papa pushing him in the wheelbarrow. We picked a few pumpkins, some local made jelly and honey and took off for the lake house.

 We stayed at Drew's parents lake house because it is close by. We spent the rest of the weekend enjoying barbecue, boiled peanuts, football and apple farms. It was the first weekend there was crisp cool air and I got to throw on a scarf and enjoy cuddling up on the couch. I love weekends like this with family, cozy weather, fun activities and cooking festive foods. Happy Fall yal!!

  L 

Beckett is 4 months old!

Hello all- Beckett is 4 months today!

Height: 27 inches (100%)

Weight: drum roll please...22 lbs!!! (100%) someone is a chunk!

All went well at the doctor today. The doctor was very pleased with him. He is able to roll from stomach to back and hold his head up well. He does tummy time well and plays in his exer-saucer. He enjoys rolling around and watching JB play. He is such a happy baby. 

He eats every 3 hours and sleeps through the night without eating. He does wake up and sometimes has a hard time getting settled again. He enjoys babbling very loud! We will now begin to fed him rice and oatmeal cereal to start his practice with the spoon. 

He is so ready to take off with rolling more and crawling in upcoming months. You can tell he can't wait. He watches John Brady and laughs.

Annual Virigina trip

Every Fall we make the lovely trip to Virigina to visit Drew's family. It is a beautiful time of the year to visit there. The leaves were starting to turn and the weather was great. The boys made the 5 1/2 hour trip great...minimal tears and screaming. :) Like a great mother in law, Stacy had everything just perfect for us when we arrived. A play area for John Brady food, snacks and drinks galore to pick from and lots of plans for the weekend.

Thursday night we sat outside on the patio and watched John Brady play. Later we enjoyed cocktails outside and we cooked homemade lasagna. It was a perfect evening with the windows open and the cool breeze filling the house.

Friday we spent the morning going to a school meeting for Dora and then a fabulous lunch at Blue Door Cafe at Draper Mercantile. The atmosphere and food were amazing. Such a cute little building!!! They have local fruits, veggies and meats for sale and also daily homemade desserts. 

We spent the rest of the day around their house playing and enjoying the outside and their great
backyard. We decided to make dinner easy on everyone and order Mexican to go. John Brady was of course a fan of that decision...I didn't complain either ;)

 

Saturday we drove to Roanoke to take JB to the train museum. He loved seeing all the trains and getting to go inside of them. They had a lot of different displays from small train sets to real trains people could tour.  It was a fun afternoon and we love downtown Roanoke. It is a very cute area with neat shops and restaurants.

As always the weekend went by too fast but we will look forward to seeing each other again and visiting Virginia. Once we move it will be an 8 hour drive :/ so that will be no fun!!

Disney Day 6: Part III - Epcot

Hello from Epcot, our last adventure on this trip. =(  

We got a little pep in our step after resting on the air conditioned bus on the way to Epcot. Once we arrived we headed straight for the Mexican Pavillion to grab lunch and ride the three cabbalerros. On the way we lucked into running into Donald with no line! This was great because John Brady got to run right up to him and have more than a minute to see him up close. We got some cute pics and then headed for lunch. Drew and I enjoyed cold margaritas on the rocks with some nachos and JB had an entire order of guac and chips. We rode three cabbalerros and then took a spin around the whole park to help walk off the lunch! We had plans to do more than what we did but it came a DOWNPOUR! We opted to go inside and meet all the characters again...after all this is the reason we came to Disney. We knew John Brady would enjoy it and we weren't up for running around the park in the rain. JB got to see all his favorite characters one last time before we darted for the exit and headed back to the room. Sad times...we got JB his bath and all cozy while we packed up our things to be ready to head out early tomorrow morning. I told JB "mommy is packing are you ready to go home?" He whimpered and said "Mickeeyy" in a pitaful voice. We had so much fun on our trip and it exceeded our expectations. We had no clue what to expect with 8 hours in the car with two little ones, parks with a toddler, a park with a baby one day in the SUMMER, etc.

Once I get home, get unpacked and settled I plan to do a post with my tips on traveling to Disney with young ones or traveling there in general! Also, what I do and don't recommend along with some money saving ideas or areas you might need to expect to splurge, etc.