Baby Cousin Brooks

Brooks McAlister Branch was born on Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 7:33 am!  He was 7 lbs 11 oz, and 19 1/4 inches long!  He and mama are doing great!  We are so excited for Clay and Emily and their new bundle of joy! We will be praying for them everyday as their little family adjusts to life with a new baby!

JB's Christmas Spectacular 2011

Decorating the Tree and Visiting Santa

We are all getting very excited about Christmas coming up in less than 2 weeks! Last Thursday we went to Lowe's and picked out our tree! It's been our tradition to get it there since mine and Kurt's first married Christmas together 5 years ago! Jack helped us pick it out, too, and he especially loved running up and down the rows of trees playing! :-) He also loved watching the workers clean up the bottom of the tree with the chainsaw!

We tied the tree on top of the car, then picked up a pizza (to continue our tree decorating and pizza eating tradition started last year), then headed home to get started! Jack loved putting ornaments on the tree, plus  playing with the other decorations we have for the house!

Sunday we finally got to go see Santa at Bass Pro Shop. Jack had been asking for days, so we finally took him. The line was extremely long, but we knew it wouldn't take too long, plus it would be worth it. Well, 2.5 hours later, we finally saw Santa! Thank goodness for all the fun around the store to keep Jack occupied for that long! Once Jack got in his lap, he loved him! He asked him for candy for Christmas, then looked right at the camera for the picture! He didn't smile, but still looked very sweet.

When we got home it was time to make Christmas cookies!!  We let Jack help stir the batter, plus cut out shapes with our new cookie cutters!  Too bad something went wrong with the batter and the shapes didn't turn out right, but we still made do with regular drop cookies!  We even added red and green icing and sprinkles to make them more festive!

Here is a video!

Thanksgiving and Iron Bowl 2011

Thanksgiving is definitely up there with one of my favorite holidays! Christmas still trumps it, but I still love it and love all the family time and food!

This year Thanksgiving started for us on Tuesday at Mama Becky and Daddy Mer's house. We even had my cousin and his wife here from Connecticut, so that was great to see them and reminisce! Mama Becky had prepared a delicious feast, so we all had a great time eating and visiting!

Wednesday night we had dinner at Papa and Sherbo's house. We got over there a little before dark, so we enjoyed a little playtime before supper. Sherbo had cooked a feast over there, too, so we ate well again!

Fun in the wagon!

We headed on down to Auburn after dinner Wednesday since we had 2 gatherings there on Thursday. The first was lunch at Granny and Granddaddy's house. Lots of food there, too, but Jack mostly played outside with his cousin Matthew. They played golf, football, and even rode on the golf cart together!

Thursday night was dinner at Mimi's. By now you'd think we'd had enough to eat and couldn't possibly eat another bite, but somehow we managed to get full plates again and it was all delicious!

We didn't do much on Friday since we'd been so busy the few days before, plus we didn't want to get out much with all the Black Friday shoppers!

Saturday was Iron Bowl day! It was hard to believe it was already the end of the regular season, but we had a fun day of tailgating planned, plus going to the game, so we were ready.

We had lots of fun tailgating, but we really just wanted the game to start so we could take Jack to his first Iron Bowl. Yes, he's just 2 years old, but he is the biggest Auburn fan I know (after his Daddy of course), and thanks to his Mama Becky and Daddy Mer, he was able to have a ticket and go!

He loves going to the game so much and especially loves the pre-game festivities. He loves watching the band play, seeing the eagle fly, plus watching the team run out and get ready to play! We had so much fun with him at the game, and even though Auburn lost, I loved experiencing the game with him and seeing his excited expressions the whole time! I'm not sure how we can explain to him that we won't be able to go to another football game for a very long time! :-(

Tired boy asleep with Granna after the game.

Jack and his cousin Sydney at the "after party" after the game. He loved playing with her so much over the holiday!

Here are some video clips from Thanksgiving and the game:

Thanks so much to all of our mothers and grandmothers for all the food they provided for Thanksgiving. We are so blessed to have so much family and so many people we love and who love us! God is so good and we have so much to be thankful for!

Thanks also to Daddy Mer and Mama Becky for the football tickets they gave us to every home game! We had so much fun and appreciate y'all letting us use them!

First Dentist Appointment!

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, November 22nd, Jack had his first dentist appointment! We went to see Dr. Mike Anglin in Hoover since he was highly recommended by Jack's Aunt Amy and Uncle Jeff, and Jack did so well!

The hygienist Rochelle was amazing and made sure Jack felt comfortable with everything before she got started. She gave everything a fun name, like the "spit catcher" was called "Mr. Thirsty", and the tooth cleaner was "The Tooth Tickler", and she let him try out everything before the actual procedure! He got to pick out his new toothbrush (Cars), plus toothpaste (he picked cake of course), and she explained everything to him before actually doing it! I was right there the whole time in case he needed me, but he loved her and did so well! I was so proud of him!

Dr. Mike came in after the cleaning and said his teeth look great, so he was impressed! He said he could tell Jack uses a paci, but as long as we can get rid of it by 3, that is fine. I told him we are trying everyday to talk about getting rid of it, so we just hope one day soon it works! We've talked about wrapping them up in a gift for his new cousin Brooks (who is coming this month!), so maybe that will end up working! We will see!

He was such a big boy and everyone there loved him! We were in and out in 20 minutes with no problems! I definitely recommend them, too! We had such a great experience!