Getting Christmas-ified

We put up all of our Christmas decorations this weekend, inside and out. Here are some pictures from the outside of our house:

 I have to admit, I'm not as thrilled with the way our lights look this year as I always was with our old house. I LOVED the exterior of our old house, and loved how the decorations prettied it up. They just don't fit our new house in the same way.

Our old house:

The snow is a nice touch, too, right? :)

I guess I can't complain too much though. I can remember being in tears around this time last year because this was about the time I bought Braysen's baby book. As I was looking through it, there was a section about "My First Home". I was very upset because at that time, we still had no idea where we would be living, and reading that part of the baby book reminded me that Braysen may not have a home to come home to.

While Tony worked on the outside, Braysen & Grammie helped with the inside. My mom will try to say that she didn't do much, but just the fact that she entertained Braysen for a little while was a huge help!

Proud Mama

Braysen shocked me in two ways today.

The first thing is that I took him to see Santa, and he did not cry. Unbeleivable to me, because it was completely unexpected. I'm not very happy with the picture from his Santa encounter, but at least he wasn't crying!

The second thing is his sleep issue. A while back I was posting that we were having some real sleep problems here. After talking to many, many people, I kept getting the same answer: it was probably time to start sleep training. The first night didn't go so well, but better than planned. He cried for about 40 minutes total before he went to sleep. I only went in to check on him a few times, because it wasn't a straight cry for the 40 minutes. He would stand up and cry, then sit back down and stop crying. He did this over and over again. Anyway, you get the picture, he fell asleep all by himself. Shocking, right? It only got better from there. The next night, he cried 10 minutes before he went to sleep. Since then, it's been at most 5 minutes of crying before he falls asleep. Since he has been putting himself to sleep, he has not been waking up at all in the middle of the night. There was one night when he woke up at 2:30, but looking back, that may have been because of his teething.

Anyway, the real reason for me to be proud. Tonight I laid him down and watched him on the monitor, like always. He laid right down and didn't cry at all. But wait! There's more! As I was watching him, I noticed that his eyes were open.  He just laid there, without crying, for 3 or 4 minutes. Then slowly, his eyes blinked very slowly a few times before he closed them completely! I think he finally has figured out this sleep business!

Turkey Day

Braysen's first Thanksgiving!

Braysen didn't partake in our Thanksgiving feast, but he did have a comparitive baby Thanksgiving feast, complete with turkey, sweet potato, and butternut squash.

We were laughing because he played almost all day with this piece of foam in his mouth. Later that night as I was brushin his teeth, I realized that he'd cut one of his top teeth! No wonder! I was really surprised, because he hasn't really been too fussy or waking up a lot at night like he was with his bottome teeth, so it was quite unexpected. 

We brought toys for him to play with, but he had other items that were on his toy agenda.

My favorite part of the day? Watching him dig into his very own baby pumpkin pie! It had crushed Cheerios as the crust, pureed pumpkin mixed with some rice cereal and cinnamon, and then was topped with his very own "whipped cream" (which was actually just plain yogurt with a teeny bit of vanilla extract. He was all into it! As a matter of fact, he got started on it before I could even get a picture snapped!

Cake Pops

The plan was to make turkey cake pops. But I had a hard time finding some of the supplies I needed (candy corn to be exact). After looking at 2 stores, I gave up. I know! A quitter! Not that it's impossible to go store-hopping looking for candy corn with an 8-month old, it's definitely not favorable, especially in the cold weather, to be plopping a baby in and out of the car seat and store carts until I find what I'm looking for. So the fam will had to settle for just plain fall cake pops instead. They devoured them. Most of my family, except for my mom, dad, and brother, hadn't tasted my cake pops yet. They were definitely a hit, even with some of the pickiest family members.

Braysen's First Haircut

Braysen had his first haircut last night. His hair was so long it was growing over his ears. And if I don't keep pushing it to the side, it is almost in his eyes. It just had to be done.