Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Birthday (again!)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, hope you had a nice one! We have a lot to be thankful this year, especially our wonderful family.

Here are a few pics from Brayden's other birthday party:

Great Grandpa & Brayden

Yummy birthday cake! (A BIG thank you to Ashley Gearhart who made the delicious cake!)

The great-grandkids: Brendan, Chandler, Emily, Charlee & Brayden, Erik & Evan

Brayden LOVES balloons!

Thanks again for the thoughful gifts, we'll busy for YEARS to come!

We got the word today: Brayden is officially allergic to dairy, peanuts, egg yolks & whites. We have to follow up with the pediatrician in this upcoming week to discuss where we go from here, so we'll keep you all posted! For now, it's back to the elimination diet for Brayden! I'm (finally) finished nursing, so I'm back to enjoying peanut butter and yogurt!! YAY!! :)

Lots to talk about...

First of all, I wanted to say CONGRATULATIONS to the Bucklen family! Their son Liam was born yesterday (the 23rd) just 4 days shy of Kelly's due date! :) YAY, Brayden's got another best bud!


I realized that i never posted a picture of Brayden in his Halloween costume, so I had to find a good one. We visited daddy's office in the afternoon, then went to Derek's co-worker's for dinner and trick or treating that evening. (We just helped to hand out candy since it was pretty cold that night, not to mention that Brayden can't even have candy!) BTW, Brayden is a doggie!! NOT a cow with no udders, NOT a bear, etc.







last week (or was it 2 weeks ago now?) we had some warmer weather, so we went outside to play a little. Brayden sat in the first puddle he came to and was soaked from head to toe (and loving it) by the time we finally got him inside!







For the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, we are headed to western PA to be with Derek's family. Although it's before Thanksgiving (and considered sacrelig in my family) I have already decorated for Christmas and have had the christmas radio station blaring in the house! Can you really blame me? This is the first christmas in 3 years that we're not moving, so I was THRILLED to be able to put up a tree and have decorations out!!! :) You'll have to visit to get the full effect, but here's a pic of our first Christmas tree as The Gearharts! Brayden loves crawling under the tree after the cat, and eatting the glitter off the christmas ornaments, but hey, it's worth it!

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY, BRAYDEN!!

Look at all those TEETH!! (5 and counting!)

Oh my! What a great weekend! We had such a great time visiting with family and celebrating Brayden's first birthday!! Time certainly flies!!

We had an ELMO themed birthday party held at Derek's office -if you don't recognize the setting- and it was perfect! We had bunches of yellow and red balloons on the floor for him to play with and he was quite amused until we opened presents!! Here is a clip of him getting his first taste of cake!

To top things off, COLE FLEW HOME for the occassion from Missori!! A fantastic surprise!!

A HUGE thanks to all who came and helped and for all the gifts and cards! More photos to come soon, just have to gather them from family members and figure out how to download them onto the laptop!! :)

Some pics courtesy of Sam, Denise and Mimi (so far):

New tonka truck from aunt Natalie:

Playing in all the balloons with his Elmo birthday cap!

The Fam:

Uncle Dane trying to steal a piece of cake from Brayden!!