The Braunstein Family

WMS Kindergarten Graduation 2009

2009-05-22T21:37:00.009-05:00

In 2006, I started this blog immediately following Graham's Toddler graduation ceremony. I decided that Graham's Kindergarten graduation was the perfect time for me to reappear on the blogger scene after my hiatus.

On May 21, 2009, my sweet first born son, Graham Anderson Braunstein, graduated from kindergarten. All week long, I was afraid I was going to absolutely lose it, but I didn't until the very end when they told the kids it was time to find their families and eat some cake. He came running to me and literally knocked me over when I bent down to hug him. It was THE SWEETEST thing ever. I cry just thinking about it. Talk about a memory I'll never forget.

Graham is a fortunate little man who had lots of people there supporting him on his big day. Not only did Aaron's parents drive in, my mom took off work, Beverly took off work, and his Baylor sitter Kelsey and her boyfriend Brett came. (I can't imagine what Aaron would have said to me when were dating in college if I had said "Hey, want to go to a kid's kindergarten graduation with me?") It touched my heart that so many people were there for him.

Cake, Graham's favorite part. Graham is the one with his head leaning on another kid's shoulder.

Waiting patiently for the ceremony to begin.

His class performing "The World is a Rainbow" which celebrates cultures around the world and how they come together. It was so sweet.

His hat being placed on his head. Look at that concentration. He was so excited to have a real hat this time. He kept saying "they were just paper in the Toddlers class."

Apparently it needed a little adjusting.

Receiving his diploma from the Head of School.

Graham and his wonderful teacher, Ms. Tita. He has come so far in her class. He still LOVES reading, and his writing skills have greatly improved from August. When I compare journal entries from the first week of school to the most recent entries, I'm blown away. She's done an outstanding job teaching our boy. He had his first multiplication lesson today! (They aren't officially out of school until 5/29, so it's pretty much business as usual.)

Graham's Peeps!

Brett & Kelsey. She's leaving for her mission trip to Kenya in two weeks. She'll be teaching VBS at an orphanage. We love her and will miss her while she's gone.

His "other Mother", Beverly. Nice icing on the mouth, buddy.

Graham with M.J. I'm not kidding when I say that I can remember when I graduated from her kindergarten class so many years ago.

Graham and Mimi. Have no idea what has him laughing so hard.

Graham and BPaw.

When we got home, he opened a few gifts. Here he is testing out his new rocket launcher from Mimi and BPaw.

He's using an air pump as a gun, I think. Brooks seems intrigued. I felt like saying "run, Brooks, run!".

Reading his special card from Kelsey.

For old times sake, I thought I would throw in a family picture from his Toddler graduation.

Graham, age 2 years and 10 months.

Graham, age 5 years and 10 months.

The post-graduation family picture. We thought it would be best if Brooks stayed home so that we could enjoy the ceremony without chasing our fast moving baby around the gym. What a great day! Think Graham will hold it against me if I blow up a few of these pics to 8x10s and have them out for his high school and college graduations?

Christmas Cheer

2008-12-15T21:12:00.004-06:00

Okay, yes, I've been MIA and catching serious heat for it. I have been taking pics, and one of these days when I'm caught up in other various aspects of life, I'll take a stroll down memory lane and post them. In the meantime, here are a few I took today of the boys. Merry Christmas!

A napping boy makes for a happy boy.

...and the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Please, Santa. We've been good boys this year. Can't you see it in our eyes? No mischief here. Nope, not a bit.

The Boys at the Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-28T22:35:00.006-05:00

I couldn't take one boy to the pumpkin patch and not the other. After all, they had cute matching shirts to wear! (I will not be able to dress them alike for very long, so I have to do it while I can.) The Pittmans joined us for a little while to take in the pumpkin scene.

Mattie and Graham - too sweet!

Henry - what a cutie!

Aren't they precious? It won't be long before they are giving each other bloody noses. I'll enjoy the sweet moments while I can.

I bought tons of pumpkins, and Graham picked out a tiny one especially for Brooks. We put them out on our front porch, and the next day, this is where we found B's special, tiny pumpkin - in the tree care of a hungry squirrel!

Pumpkin Patch Fun

2008-10-28T22:14:00.006-05:00

Brooks' playgroup made a trip to a local pumpkin patch a few days ago. It's funny to attempt to pose several children ages 3 months to a year for a picture. This isn't our entire group, but I had to take pics and run while Brooks was still in a happy mood, so not everyone had arrived as of yet. As you remember from earlier posts, the boy does not like being in the car. I had to get on the road while the gettin' was good.

Thumb? Paci? Is there a difference?

There it is!

2008-10-23T16:02:00.003-05:00

A real smile for the camera!

Recent Pics of Brooks

2008-10-16T21:36:00.002-05:00

Here are some new pictures of Brooks. Still can't capture the smile, but we'll keep working on that.

Yes, I'm Back!

2008-10-14T00:41:00.000-05:00

Enjoy the many, many new posts. You are now up to date on the happenings in our family. Don't be surprised if it takes me another month to catch up after this! :-)

Brooks' Baptism - October 12, 2008

2008-10-14T00:25:00.006-05:00

October 12 is a very special day in the Braunstein house. Both of our boys were baptized on this date - Graham in 2003 and Brooks in 2008 wearing the same suit and with the same candle lit on the altar. Graham's baptism was in Austin (even though we lived in Waco) at the church where Aaron and I were married, and Brooks' baptism was here in Waco at the church where we have been members for several years.

Wade, Tracey and Emily, as well as Aaron's parents and my mom were here for the big day. It was so special. The weekend in general was full of lots of activities and fun. While the rest of the crew went to the Baylor v. Iowa State game on Saturday ngiht, Aaron and I went to an event at the HOT Fair & Rodeo. Aaron volunteers for the rodeo, and he recently worked with them on their new website. Tracey was kind enough to stay home with the little man. (Thank you!!!)

Here's how we found the family when we got home from the rodeo. For those of you that have read my blog for a while, you may remember a similar picture from July 2006.

Below are a few pictures from the service. Thank you Julie for being the photographer.

And in an attempt to get the perfect family photo...

While the adults had an incredible catered meal care of my friend JoAn (like I was going to cook. yeah right!), the kids opted for Sonic and then they spent a little, okay a lot, of time playing Wade's Wii.

There's that precious smile!

WMS Loved Ones' Day 2008

2008-10-14T00:10:00.006-05:00

Loved Ones' Day is an opportunity for the kids to invite family and friends to the school to see what they do each day. It's a lot of fun, and this year, my mom was able to find someone to cover her class and come for a portion of it. Graham was so happy about that.

They were in charge of serving their guests snacks.

They performed for us, and then we all had the wonderful fortune of doing the Chicken Dance together!

Playing a little football with Daddy on the playground.

This little girl is a former student of his teacher who has moved on to elementary school. Her little brother is in this class, and she came back to visit. In true Montessori fashion, she's doing a work with Graham in a mentoring type fashion.

Big Brother Wade Turns 40

2008-10-13T23:44:00.010-05:00

My big brother turned 40 on October 1, but trust me, he's still a kid at heart. We went down to visit him for the big event. A few of us went in on a gift that every 40 year old needs...a Wii. He loves it! Graham kept correcting Emily when she'd say "my Wii", he'd say "no, it's your DAD's Wii, not yours."Wade and his wife, Tracey.

My mom's birthday and Wade's birthday are just a few days apart, so we sang to them both. Brooks was quite content like this all night.

Wade and his best friend from childhood and college roommate, James. Honestly, from the time that I have memories of Wade (we're six years apart), I have memories of James in our house.

Graham had to bring his mini-football teams (the Steelers and the Patriots) to play with Wade. This was pre-Wii.

He had no idea what he was getting, so the look on his face was hilarious. In the picture below, the kids are telling him exactly how to play the Wii, what games are cool, etc. He was a little overwhelmed, I think.

Hanging with Brooks.

Tracey and Brooks watching the kids play. By the time B can play, there will be a new, cooler, more sophisticated "must have" gaming system.

Flag Football

2008-10-13T23:23:00.005-05:00

Aaron gave Graham the choice to play soccer or flag football, and G chose football. And personally, I don't think I'm cut out to be a soccer mom (Aaron's sister is one, and I swear, the woman is SO busy driving all over creation to game after game, but I'm sure I'd do it for my children if they loved the game the way hers do.), so flag football was fine with me. It's even better than t-ball if you ask me. Kind of a semi-controlled chaos and hilarious to boot. By the way, Graham is #1!

Praying before the game.

blocking

Brooks cheering on his big brother and the Wildcats.

Brooks - Three Months Old (Sept. 29, 2008)

2008-10-13T22:30:00.004-05:00

Brooks is developing a real personality. It's too cute. He's a big talker and makes the most precious sounds. He loves the bath and kicks like crazy which is very different from Graham. G was so laid back in the tub, and he always looked as if he was just tubing down the river on a lazy summer day. Brooks, not so much. He kicks and kicks. Perhaps, we have a future Micheal Phelps? He makes us laugh every day because his smile is too cute. Unfortunately, it's hard to catch it on digital (that whole delay thing is so annoying). I'll keep trying.

We're still working on the whole sleeping thing. As for daytime naps, they're mostly spent in his car seat with me swinging, rocking, etc., and I have the calluses on my hands to prove it. I'm seriously considering bike gloves to help with these nasty things. Brooks' sitters told me that they get a good workout when they come over and put him down for his naps - in the carseat, of course. As for night time, we're still not sleeping through the night, but his time between feedings has seemed to increase, at least for the last two or three nights. Knock on wood that it continues.

Despite the lack of sleep and utter hatred for the car (still), we're having a blast with this little guy. Graham is such a great big brother and is always looking out for Brooks. Of course, he would prefer that B didn't cry so much in the car because that really gets in the way of hearing the High School Musical soundtrack.

Four months is just around the corner. I'll have stats on weight for that post.

How Cute am I?

2008-10-13T22:27:00.000-05:00

Baylor Football 2008

2008-10-13T22:18:00.003-05:00

Fall would not be fall in the Braunstein house without Baylor football. Here are a few pictures from the first couple of games.

Brooks first BU game...Baylor v. Wake Forest.

Cheeeeeesseee.

My boys in their Baylor gear before the Baylor v. Northwestern State game.

First Day of School 08-09 - Kindergarten!

2008-10-13T22:02:00.005-05:00

This was no ordinary first day of school - it was the first day of KINDERGARTEN. Yes, my baby is all grown up. Graham changed classrooms this year (even though in the Montessori way, a child usually stays in the same room for three years) and he's loving the new, smaller class. He truly loves to read, and he gets very excited on the nights he brings home his readers. He's working hard on his writing skills, but between his quest for perfection (have no idea where he gets that trait) and being a lefty, he has struggled a bit with it, but he's improving. We're quite proud of our little scholar.

Just like last year, I thought a trip down "Montessori first day of school memory lane" would be fun...

2005-2006 (Toddler Program)

2006-2007 (Early Childhood/Preschool)

2007-2008 (Early Childhood/PreK)

2008-2009 (I was tempted to go back to our old house to take the traditional first day of school picture.)

End of Summer Pictures of the Boys

2008-10-13T21:39:00.005-05:00

Here are some fun pics of the boys at the end of the summer.

Bonzai t-ball.

This is how Brooks watched Graham play in the backyard. He looks entertained, doesn't he?

It's bed time, boys!

Graham likes to use my new Swiffer. Here he is cleaning the playroom. Now, don't get the idea that he does this every day or anything amazing like that...

Graham absolutely loves his little brother.

Brooks - Two Months Old (August 29, 2008)

2008-09-08T20:53:00.003-05:00

Yes, he's two months old now...and what a ride it's been! I need not recap his health history, so I'll just stick to the fun stuff. He's now 11 lbs. 2 ounces and 22 3/4" long. A growing boy! He smiles and coos, which just melts all of our hearts. He's starting to focus on things and can even interact with Graham a bit. Brooks has some issues going down for naps. He basically fights it every step of the way. And he's still not a big fan of the car. I wish I could video myself in the pick-up line at school waiting to get Graham. I have to get out of the car, rock his car seat, put in his paci, get back in the car, move up, get back out, rock his car seat, put in his paci, get back in the car, and well, you get the picture. I'm sure it's quite funny to watch.

Here are a few pictures of our boy. It's just so hard to accept that those newborn moments are gone. I think it's even more profound since Graham started a milestone year at school (kindergarten - will post more on that later), so I know how fast it goes by.

more tummy time.

lift that head up! kick those legs!

How cute!

Action shot!

Sad, Sad Day....

2008-09-06T12:59:00.003-05:00

Friday, September 5, 2008 was a very hard day in the Braunstein household. Okay, maybe it was just a very hard day on me. (I think Aaron was not-so-secretly doing a happy dance.) I had to make the decision to put my first baby, my cat Sadie, out of her misery after discovering she had chronic kidney failure.

She started to have issues on Wednesday, and I couldn't get into my regular vet until Friday. And even then, it would be her on-call vet b/c she was out of town. By Thursday, things had really gone downhill, so I called some of my animal loving friends to find out who they trusted to treat their furry family members. I was able to get Sadie to a vet that afternoon, and the initial diagnosis without blood-work results was diabetes. By that evening when the blook-work came back, we found out about her kidneys. She stayed at the vet that night with an IV of fluids - basically on kitty dialysis.

I was up most of that night trying to decide what to do. Even if they could reverse Sadie's kidney function, she would still require dialysis on a routine basis and even then, there is no telling how long she would live or what kind of quality of life she would have. So, after lots of thinking and consulting with the vet via the phone several times on Friday morning, I made my decision.

Aaron took me to tell her good-bye. It was way more traumatic than I thought it would be for me to see her again. However, after seeing her, it was obvious to me that I did make the right decision. She was not herself, and she deserves better. I called my brother, Wade, because he's the sensitive one of the family, and I knew he'd be supportive. I also had lots of friends, even those who aren't cat people at all, help me through this. Everyone was so sweet. Thank you.

Sadie has been with me since the day I graduated from Baylor in May 1997. She was a graudation gift from Aaron's friends that they adopted from Town Lake Animal Shelter in Austin. She's lived with me in Dallas, in Austin (three places), and in Waco (another three places). I will miss her dearly, and for those of you that have animals, I'm sure you understand.

I've already told Aaron that a new kitty will be coming to live with us in the spring. He's not on board with the idea yet, but in the back of his mind (he even semi-admitted this to me), he knows it's not exactly an option.

Visit to Fort Worth

2008-09-06T12:51:00.003-05:00

One Saturday, we made a quick trip to Fort Worth to visit my grandmother. Graham was a great car traveler, but the same cannot be said about Brooks. I had to sit in the back between the boys and keep Brooks' paci in place just to keep him quiet. We're praying this is just a phase...

Brooks with his grandmother (MJ) and great-grandmother (MeeMaw). Graham just wanted to stay outside and play football with Aaron all afternoon. It was a bit too hot for the little guy to be out there. Unfortunately, I didn't get any football pics.

End of the Trailer Trip

2008-09-06T12:38:00.006-05:00

Graham came home from camping with Aaron's parents about 24 hours after Brooks was discharged from the hospital. It was such a blessing that Graham was with them during that time. He really enjoyed himself, and he talks about the trip constantly. Here are few pics that G took during the trip with the help of his cousins and grandparents. Unfortunately, I have no clue where they were when any of these were taken. I still haven't developed the ones from his disposable cameras, but from what I've been told, there's a lot of pictures of just riding in the truck. Hey, whatever passes the time and keeps him from asking "are we there yet?".

They were feeding chipmunks. Both Whitney and David used their phones to take pictures. Also, David taught Graham how to do everything on his iPhone. Now Graham knows how to work mine better than I do, and now he's always asking to "borrow it for a second." I told Aaron we should just get him his own. Aaron is so not on board with that idea. I guess he's right, I mean, he is only five.
I love the creativity of play in this picture. Graham said "can you tell what we're doing?". At first, I couldn't, but with a few hints, I got it. They're a band. Whitney is on drums, G is playing the guitar and David is singing. Graham said they took turns on each instrument and the mic.

Fishing with BPaw. Graham loved this! Now he has his very own pole on the trailer for any future trips.Home again, home again. We met them at George's for lunch to pick up G. They actually got into Waco the night before, and Graham had the choice to camp one more night with them on the lake or come home. He chose the lake!

Graham in July

2008-09-05T10:22:00.007-05:00

Since I am clearly a little behind in my posts, here are few pics from July (prior to B's hospital stay). One of these days, I'll be back on blogger in a more "routine" fashion. In the meantime, here's what's been going on....

In mid-July, our church had a kids music camp, and they performed for an entire church service. It was a school PE class theme, so that's why they're all in work-out type clothes verus church clothes. I wasn't sitting close enough to get really good pictures, but it was really precious. It was also Brooks' first visit to church.

For Graham's birthday, we bought him new furniture for his bedroom. Also, Aaron took Graham and two if his buddies, Clarke and Thomas to the circus and out for ice cream.

Getting ready for the circus.

This is how I found Graham when he got home from all of the activities and said he was going to watch TV in the playroom.

Brooks First Illness...and It Was a BIG ONE!

2008-08-03T19:55:00.008-05:00

...so big that he ended up spending three nights in the hospital. That's right, just one month and two days after his birth, he apparently missed Hillcrest so badly that he wanted to go back and visit for a few days. Not exactly what mom and dad had in mind, but we all made it through and we're back home and most importantly, HEALTHY.

To sum it up, Brooks was very fussy on Wednesday and he ended up with a slight fever that evening (which varied depending on where you took his temp and with what type of thermometer). I was on the phone with the on-call nurse and doctor until 11:00 p.m. that night. As long as his temp stayed below 100.6, we could keep him home. It was a LONG, LONG, LONG night. We were at the doc's office at 10:15 a.m. on Thursday, and after a thorough check up, the doc broke it to us that we needed to go to the hospital right then for blood work, urine sample and a spinal tap. I was okay until I heard spinal tap. That's when he explained to us that there could possibly be bacteria in his system, and he could possibly have meningitis.

Well, unfortunately Aaron and I are not strangers to meningitis. Four years ago, to the week, Aaron had the same thing happen to him. We knew the drill, but when it's in your little guy who can't communicate, it's very frightening.

They did the tests Thursday afternoon around 1:00 p.m., and the rest was a waiting game. That evening our doc said based on the initial test results and the fluid from the spine, that he was pretty sure we were looking at viral, not bacterial. Yea! But, just like with Aaron, B had to stay in the hospital until the 72 hour mark to see if any cultures grew to indicate bacterial. He was given antibiotics immediately as treatment in case it turned out to be bacterial. They moved us to an isolation room which meant you had to scrub in and out every time you entered or left the room, and the nurses and docs had to wear masks, gloves and gowns.

Fortuantely for us, and thanks to lots of prayers and trusting in God, we were discharged today at 2:00 p.m. We will go back to the doc later this week for a follow-up, but Brooks is healthy and back to his "old self"...you know, the one we've known for the last month! The nurses at the hospital were great! Brooks developed a reputation as a strong guy, and he did not enjoy being messed with every four hours for his vital check. Most of his attitude had to do with the fact that he was just plain miserable, but one nurse said that she worked her full 12 hour shift in the 15 minutes she had to work on retaping and flushing his IV. But really, who would want their IV messed with? She was funny, and we didn't take it personally. We know that our boy is a sweetheart.

Here a few pics of our experience. Thank you to everyone who prayed for Brooks and for our sanity during this time. Aaron and I have been riding a roller coaster of events since last summer filled with ups and downs, and without the support of our wonderful friends and family, we would have probably lost our minds by now. Thanks guys!

Right after his tests. That little gown was the biggest pain!

After moving to our new isolation room.

We changed him into a little white t-shirt, and he was much happier. See how peaceful he looks.

Our sweet nurse, Emilie, brought him a mobile since he wasn't able to play with the regular toys they have for kiddos.

He's watching the Rangers game. Seriously, he was staring at the TV when I took this picture.

Yes, Aaron looks bored. We were going a bit crazy in that tiny room.

Taking out the IV and getting ready to bust out of there. Yea!

Brooks with our sweet nurse, Emilie.

Going home! SWEET!!!!

And again, thank you to everyone that helped us. We had food brought/delivered to the hospital, friends that went to our house to bring us clothes, friends that went to try to start my car that broke down Friday night when I was taking my hour break from the hospital and of course everyone that called, emailed or texted us during our stay. Thanks!

Brooks - One Month Old (July 29, 2008)

2008-07-29T23:05:00.007-05:00

Brooks is one month old! I can't believe it. I feel like just yesterday I was in the hospital with this little guy hanging out. Now this "the tiny man", as Graham calls him, is starting to show real personality and letting us know when he is not happy. Considering he wasn't breathing or crying like he was supposed to right after he was born (think I failed to mention that before...I was freaking out!), he has definitely made up for it now. Brooks has serious lungs! Not too much to report, but I would say the biggest development that we have discovered is that he is not a fan of the car. He's starting to enjoy his swings/bouncey seats in small amounts of time, but mostly the boy wants to be held or in a sling (thanks Elizabeth for the tip on that one! Lifesaver!). Here are few pics to capture the first month of Brooks' life.

Time with BPaw

Amy Schisler came to visit and went with us to an appointment to have his hearing checked (he failed in the hospital, but he passed at the appointment). She also brought me some important stuff from Dallas that I can't get in Waco. Thanks, Amy!!!

Graham really wanted to give Brooks a bottle.

The novelty wore off quickly. In this picture he's telling me to come get the baby and the bottle.

Our boys are just too cute! Graham likes this picture because he says Brooks is giving him a hug.

Two week doctor visit. Up to 7lbs. 15 oz. and 21" long.

Tummy Time!

The ever-important first trip to Target.

I actually caught him in action rolling to his side. I was taking tons of pictures, so I think he might have been telling me what he thinks of me and my camera.

Graham's Summer Vacation

2008-07-28T20:56:00.003-05:00

Let me preface this post with this statement: I have LOTS of pictures to post, but this new addition to our lives likes to be held all of the time, thus making computer time quite limited. I try to spend the few minutes a day that I'm not holding that sweet child actually getting some work done. One of these days I'll be caught up. Okay, back to the post I go...

At least one of us gets to take a vacation this summer. Aaron's parents called us on Friday, July 18 to see if G might be interested in taking a trailer trip to New Mexico and Colorado leaving on Monday, July 21 with two of his cousins. My first response was "oh how fun, but how long are they going to be gone?" to which Aaron responded "probably around two weeks." TWO WEEKS! The boy is FIVE, and two weeks is a long time, especially when you know that if he gets homesick there's no jumping into the car to pick him up in the middle of the night. Aaron told Graham about this opportunity to see the country, and of course, he jumped on it. The only person having issues with the situation was me! One week, I know I can handle b/c we've done that before, but TWO weeks. Did I mention that's a long time?

Graham was a little aprehensive, but nothing like me. I managed to maintain my composure and not let him know how stressed and sad I was about the entire thing. Here are few pics from the send off. Does he look the least bit scared to you?

And off they go....

We've talked to them a few times since they left, and so far he's having a great time and doing lots of fun things.

He's done lots of fishing and went white water rafting. Of course, after a few near drowning experiences on the Guadalupe (and I'm not exaggerating about that), I am not a big fan of rivers, especially using them as recreation. Aaron mentioned that David, Graham's cousin, wanted to go rafting, but I thought "surely, one of the adults will sit out with G." Well, Aaron knew they were going and TAKING Graham with them, and he kept it from me until he called his parents to check on how it went. I could have really hurt him when I found out. Turns out they went on a raft ride specifically for kids his age with only a few rapids. Apparently G had a blast! Of course, when they wanted to take him horseback riding, he was denied a ride b/c he's a year too young. What? Does that seem backwards to anyone else?

Anyway, I've made it through week one with only a few tears shed at the beginning of the week. It's way quiet around our house, but I know that will all change when he gets back next week. I armed him with two disposable cameras and our old digital, so we'll see if we get any pics back from his vacation.

It's so exhausting...

2008-07-11T21:24:00.002-05:00

...being a big brother...

...AND being a little brother...

Fourth of July

2008-07-07T21:43:00.007-05:00

Our neighborhood has a parade every Fourth of July, and Graham was very excited to participate in it this year. He and Aaron decorated his bike and walked in the parade with a lot of our other friends. Brooks and I watched from our driveway in the shade. After the parade, we all went down the street to our friends' house (the ones we bought our current house from) for a little sprinkler fun for the kids.

Later that afternoon, Wade, Tracey and Emily came up from Cypress to meet Brooks. Emily and Graham play very well together, so it's always nice for them to get together (except for the part where they stay up until 11:00 p.m. and G is way cranky the next day. Oh well, they don't see each other very often.).

MJ with her grandchildren.

The sprinklers went off and Graham had a blast. Emily headed for the house and remained dry. Not my son. He was soaked!

Emily and Graham at breakfast on Sunday. They did an incredible job of sharing the Leapster.

Uncle Wade and Aunt Tracey

Cousins. Emily is outnumbered. She was pulling for a girl, and when they told her it was a boy she said "ah man", but then decided it was okay to have another boy in the family.

More Pics from Week 1 w/Brooks

2008-07-07T21:34:00.004-05:00

Here are some more pictures from our first week home with Brooks. My mom has been visiting, and she does a great job at keeping G occupied.

This is our wonderful sitter, Kelsey, who stayed with Graham the night we went to the hospital. She came over to meet Brooks and tell G bye for the summer (she was only in Waco first summer session). She gave the boys presents. Graham received a fire truck puzzle, and she gave Brooks his first Baylor shirt to wear during football season.

Brooks' little belly button stump fell off very quickly, so here he is after his first bath at home.

Aren't our boys sweet? I'm totally pulling these pics out in a few years when they're beating each other up. I have two older brothers, I'm not stupid. I know this won't last forever, but I'm going to cherish it while it does.

He's Finally Here!

2008-07-02T22:22:00.009-05:00

As I think many of you guys know by now, Brooks Patterson Braunstein made his entrance into the world on Sunday, June 29 at 2:48 a.m. His birth weight was 7 pounds 4 ounces and his length was 19.5". I was FLOORED by the stats as I thought surely he was going to weigh somewhere up there with his big brother.

Here's how it all went down. My induction date was scheduled for July 1, so I made all of my "vanity" appointments (nails, brows, hair, etc.) for Friday the 27th and Saturday the 28th in order to be ready for giving birth on July 1. My hair appointment had been scheduled for almost 6 weeks with a guy I'd been wanting to get into for quite some time. I had joked all along that as long as I make it to the haircut, I could go into labor immediately thereafter. Well, that turned out not to be a joke after all.

I left the salon at 5:45 p.m. I remember looking at the clock and calling Aaron to say I'd be home shortly. Around 7:30 p.m., Aaron and Graham took my dinner order and grocery list and headed out the door. At 7:35 p.m., my water broke (I ran to look at the clock, so I'm 100% certain of the exact time.). Aaron had not even made it out of the driveway when I called to tell him to just get G dinner and head back home ASAP. I called our sweet Baylor/Theta sitter who has been staying with G every afternoon this summer, and she was at our house within minutes to stay the night with the Graham.

By the time we got to the hospital, I thought my contractions were like 10 minutes apart, but once I got hooked up, they were somewhere between 2-3 minutes...what do I know, I didn't go into labor w/G and was heavily medicated. I just knew that I was in pain and wanted something pretty quickly. Of course, a little pain never stopped me from emailing and texting on my phone.

My doctor was not on call last weekend, and I was terrified that I would have an awful experience because of the doctor (had no clue who he was). I had confessed this to my doctor's nurse last week, and she told me that I could have my doctor paged even though he wasn't on call. I requested this, and while they claimed they paged him and he didn't return the page, I'm not 100% they really did b/c they semi-freaked when I asked them to call him. Anyway, the on call doctor turned out to be a great doctor and we all did just fine.

When the doctor checked me around 10:00 p.m. (post epidural when I was much happier), he estimated a delivery between 4-8 a.m. The nurse checked me around 2:20 a.m. and said we were ready to go and she called the doctor. His words to us when he walked into the room "it's not even 4 yet." I don't know if he meant to be funny, but I laughed. I started the whole process at 2:40 a.m. and the words "it's a boy" were said at 2:48 a.m. SOOOOO much faster and easier than my delivery with Graham. I think it also helped that I had three nurses in there and Aaron was able to be more of a comfort than a nurse. Last time, we only had one delivery nurse, and poor Aaron had to everything she needed b/c they were short-staffed.

Oh, and I just have to say this about my new hair guy. He goes to our church, and jokingly he said "if you're not there tomorrow, I'll know why." Well, Aaron had called some friends from church when we got to the hospital and they ran a quick errand for us (film for my favorite non-digital camera), so Aaron called them again on Sunday with the news. It was announced during the service, and yesterday, I received the sweetest letter in the mail from my new stylist congratulating us on Brooks. How sweet is that????

We're so excited about having another little man in our lives. We actually know what to do! Here are some pictures of the big event and the first week of his life with our family. Graham is adjusting very well and seems to really like the role of big brother. Of course, the gifts he's getting from everyone don't seem to hurt either. :-)

Pre-epidural

Post-epidural. Texting and eating a popsicle.

"Good morning, Mom & Dad. Did I wake you up or something?"

Dang, he's a cutie!

Graham meeting his little brother for the first time.

Graham tried to give Brooks his first ever high five.

Mimi - Mary Pat...her middle name is really Patterson, and that is why we chose it for B's middle name. Graham's middle name is Anderson which is my grandfather's (on my mom's side) middle name. Now we have both grandmother's covered, and Aaron's dad of course, gets the last name.

MJ meeting her newest grandson.

The Phillips cousins with the Braunstein boys.

JoAn and her kids came to meet Brooks. And b/c they rock, they took G home with them and he spent the night. He thought it was way cool!

Boots and Taylor brought G a soccer ball, and they all played soccer in my hospital room.

Aaron picked up Graham from the Felton's on Monday morning and brought him to the hospital so that all four of us could leave together as a family. I don't know why, but I found that to be so sweet.

The Boys!

Brooks' first night at home. We discovered that unlike his brother, this kid actually enjoys being swaddled and uses his paci.

Swimming Lessons 2008

2008-06-23T07:28:00.010-05:00

Aaron and I are sooooo proud of Graham this summer with his swimming. Just like last year, we signed him up for two weeks with the same teachers. He was a little fussy the first couple of days, but there were no major protests at all. He can now jump from the side of the pool, swim, come up for a breath and continue swimming to his teacher. Now it's just a matter of us keeping him in a pool, so he doesn't lose his "skills" as he calls them.

Week 1:

Week 2:

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Baby Braunstein Update & Baby Shower

2008-06-18T21:36:00.006-05:00

We're looking at about a week before the baby is scheduled to join our family. My doctor is awesome and allowed us to set an induction date prior to my due date since Graham was late and such a big kiddo.

On the 14th, four of my good friends in Waco threw Baby Braunstein a small diaper shower. It was a lot of fun, and two of my good Austin friends (a pledge sister from Baylor - Alison, and my old boss, Meg) made the drive up to attend. My mom came in from Liberty, and Aaron's mom, sister and our nieces came up from Dripping Springs and Wimberley. (And it's a good time to say thank you to them for unpacking our entire kitchen for us!!!) The shower took a lot out of me, but we are so set on diaper and wipes for a while. We have one entire closet full of nothing but things for a baby's little bottom!

JoAn, Katherine and Missy...the hostesses. Carrie, who we just happened to buy our house from, was not able to be there. They were so sweet to do this for us, and it was greatly appreciated. (OK - for those of you that have asked for pics on the blog of pregnant me, here you go. I told you that I don't even look like myself anymore.)

Aaron's mom, my mom, Debbie (one of our very first friends in Waco; she was at the hospital within hours of Graham's birth), and Beverly (the closest thing we have to family in Waco.)

Church friends.

We can't wait to meet "Kid Braunstein".

We're at it again.....

2008-06-18T20:30:00.009-05:00

That's right, we moved yet again. In 9.5 years of marriage, this is our 6th place to live (3 in Austin and 3 in Waco). Graham has had the pleasure of living in all three of our Waco residences. Aaron and I have never said this about another home, but this one is one we want to stay in for a long time. Aaron got his old school cut Austin stone, and I got my red front door! We've had it under contract since February - on Aaron's birthday actually (so I sort of lied in his birthday post about it being an uneventful day b/c it was VERY eventful and VERY exciting), and we moved in early June. It's just taken me a while to get it all posted b/c a hot, summer move will take a lot out of a pregnant woman.

Anyway, when I've mentioned before that we had a lot coming up this summer, I wasn't just referring to a new baby...which of course the next big thing. We are so very happy to be in this house, and the family that we bought it from just moved a few houses down the street. They also have a little boy who is 5, and Graham moved right on into his room - a room he's played in many times. We were concerned there might be a major transition period, but nope, Graham didn't even want to go back to our old house when we were moving things. He would sit in the car or just play in the front yard. He was clearly over the old house before the ink was even dry on the closing papers.

Here are pictures from Graham's last night in our old house.

He fell asleep in our bed...

...and then he moved into his own room.

Sadie is living in our laundry/mud room now (will be my office once I get settled - there's a nice built-in desk) and Graham likes how she uses the built-in cabinets as her own kitty condo. And I'm not even going to lie, I love my laundry room the adorable wall paper, access to the backyard, playroom, kitchen, and our brand new front loader washer and dryer. We left our old stackable one for the new owner of our old house.

So, we have right around two weeks to get settled and ready for the new baby. He/she is going into a room that is already painted pink. We decided to leave it pink until his/her arrival, and once we find out the big surprise of what we're having, we'll make the call as to whether to leave it pink or paint it another color.

Up to Date

2008-06-05T17:26:00.001-05:00

I've finally updated the blog with lots of new posts. Enjoy and please do not criticize the typos. There are probably tons, but at least I finally updated the blog!

Baylor Biddie Ball Camp

2008-06-05T14:36:00.010-05:00

This week Graham attended Baylor "Biddie Ball" camp with his friend Mattie. It was so cute and so realistic. The main coach for their class was Coach Driscoll, one of the assistants to Coach Drew who recently won an award voted on by his peers as one of the top 10 assistant coaches in the U.S. Coach Drew gave a pep talk every morning to get the day started with all of the various age groups together before they broke apart for their class. Coach Driscoll was so loud, but he never lost his patience, and he kept those kids in line. The funniest part of the whole thing to me was when they had to do push-ups or sit-ups. Kids that age doing push-ups is truly funny.

Mattie was a complete trooper. She was on the only girl for the first two days and she hung in there with those boys. Oh, and I just have to repeat what she told Graham (EP - it's just too good not to post). She said "Graham, you're going to fall in love with me." The boy's face turned bright red. HILARIOUS. Oh, and she was also sad because when she asked Graham if he liked her pig tails, he didn't say anything. She took that as meaning he did not like them, but I just don't think G knows what they are. Aaron and I explained to him last night that if a girl ever asks how she looks, you just say "great!". Life lesson of the week!

Graham and Mattie on the first day of camp.

With encouragement from Mattie's mom, the two kids ventured out onto the court to get balls and started practicing like the other kids.

They survived their first day of camp!

In between drills, they stopped to get another pep-talk from Coach Driscoll.

Sorry that it's fuzzy, but it's hard to get a good action shot when these kids are in constant motion.

Today was the last day of class, and each kid got an official BU basketball shirt (G even said "look Mom, it says Adidas on the back.") and an official BU basketball.

We stuck around to have some of the players sign his ball. Here he is with Mamadou Diene who was recently named Big 12 Male Sportsman of the Year. Mamadou popped in every day to check on the kids. He is 7" tall.

Here former Dayton/Liberty County resident and DHS standout, Henry Dugat autographs G's ball.

Curtis Jerrells, Graham and Henry Dugat. This is a good time to tell you that I made a complete fool of myself in front of these two guys. I was totally talking to Jerrells thinking it was Dugat saying "I'm from Liberty. My mom teaches in Dayton." Jerrells was like "okay" until Aaron pointed out that I was totally talking to the wrong guy. Nice. Then when trying to apologize, I made myself looking even less intelligent. Oh well, I told them to blame my pregnancy. If they had been wearing jerseys with their numbers (#0=Jerrells and #5=Dugat), I wouldn't have looked so dumb. Oh well. For you Liberty peeps out there that read this blog, Dugat is even wearing a Lee College t-shirt - hey, I have 9 hours of college credit from that place!

Graham and Kevin Rogers. By this point, I had embarassed myself enough, so I just stayed behind while G took him his ball and kept my mouth shut.

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Graham's 5th Birthday Party

2008-06-05T14:19:00.006-05:00

Since things are about to get just a tad hectic in our lives, Aaron and I opted to have Graham's 5th birthday a little early this year. Okay, so about two months early. Graham chose a dinosaur party, and we held it at the park we discovered last summer with all of the moveable playground equipment. Not many people had been there before, so it was to watch the kids discover the new place. In addition to playing on the crazy equipment, we had a dinosaur egg hunt and a T-Rex pinata. Graham has already planned out the themes for his birthday parties through age 8 - and I am NOT kidding.

Once again, we had the same person create a kids cake masterpiece for the party. I was trying to convince G to go for cupcakes (I was thinking everything should be disposable and easy to transport since we didn't have it at our house), but he insisted that she do it again this year. Of course, she agreed. She asked him what he wanted and he just said an "orange dinsosaur that is chocolate on the inside." She did just that, and it was so precious and so delicious. The scales on his back are old school Fruit Stripe gum.

Aaron rounded up all of the kids for the dinosaur egg hunt, and they all listened and stayed in line until he said "go".

And they're off!

This T-Rex pinata would not die. It took forever, and I think every kid got 2-3 turns at least!

It was very breezy (no complaints here), so the candles wouldn't light, but we sang happy birthday anyway.

He got back in the "bowl" after all of the other kids had left. I think he had a great time. I know Aaron and I both did.

Thank You Amy!

2008-06-05T14:07:00.003-05:00

The day after Memorial Day, Amy Schisler came down to Waco and took me for a spa day for my baby gift. Isn't she the best? I really, really, really enjoyed myself and spending the day with her. Of course, it's always a blast to be with Amy. We took a picture together following my massage, but there is no way on earth I'm positing that here. I looked bad enough before we got to the spa, but following a massage, I looked absolutely awful, but I felt absolutely incredible. Thanks, Amy! YOU ROCK!!!!!!!!!

Here's Amy showing off her legs prior to her pedicure. :-)

Memorial Day Weekend

2008-06-05T13:46:00.001-05:00

We laid low over Memorial Day Weekend, but here a few pics and one video that just cracks me up of what Graham was up to that weekend.

Aaron did some work around, or rather under, the house over the course of the weekend. He re-routed our driver vent or something like that. Anyway, as usual, I was exhausted and needed a nap. He needed to finish up this project, so check out his little helper. I wasn't 100% on board with this, but no one got hurt and Graham even went and got Aaron a water just to be nice. They were both filthy when they reappeared from under the house a couple of hours later. Thank goodness our crawl space is in one of our bathrooms, so G went straight into the shower.

More sprinkler fun. This kid loves to run in the sprinklers, but really, what kid doesn't?

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Baby Update

2008-06-03T20:34:00.000-05:00

I have about four or five more things to post from activities from the last couple of weeks, but I don't think I'm going to get to those tonight because I'm tired of resizing pics. I figured I would just go ahead and throw a baby update out there in case anyone is curious about what's going on.

I started my weekly visits today, so we truly are in the home stretch. I'm pretty much swollen from head to toe, which isn't an exaggeration at all. My face is so swollen that when I smile, it doesn't even look like me anymore. My feet are so swollen that I have to lay down and prop them up w/ice every 2-3 hours just to get my flip flops on. And based on my weigh-in today, I will probably end up weighing more by the delivery date than I did with Graham, which is just NUTS considering I started around 10 pounds lighter AND I didn't have brownies every day. Have I been a perfect eater? Well, no, but I really don't think my eating has been nearly as bad as it was when I was pregnant with G. Will I be shocked if this baby is close to 10 pounds, probably not. But...I'm thinking the doc might need to reconsider how we're going to have this one. While I've not had a c-section, it doesn't sound like a bad idea if this baby is going to be a big one. And by big one, I mean anything larger than Graham (9 lbs. 1 oz. 22" long)

All that to say, I'm excited about having this baby in the next few weeks, but the misery has set in. I'm trying not to dwell on it b/c I know the alternative. My very good friend and college roommate, Karrie, was due about 10 days after me, and her son arrived at 30 weeks. He's been in NICU for about a month now and will probably be there until about the time I deliver. He's doing well, but I know she's been under a lot of stress through the whole ordeal. Aaron and I went to see them when he was about 10 days old, and he was just precious. So tiny, but so precious. Please keep them in your prayers.

Back to my appointment today. Besides almost breaking the scale, everything else is fine, even with all of the swelling. I haven't made any real progress yet, which is fine with us...for now. We have a few big things scheduled over the course of the next few weeks that we'd really like to get taken care of before this little person makes his/her arrival.

I'll keep you posted, and hopefully by the end of the week, I can post more about our Memorial Day weekend, G's early birthday celebration and G's time at Baylor Biddie Ball Basketball camp with Coach Drew. (told you I'm behind)

WMS End of Year Activities

2008-06-03T20:21:00.000-05:00

During the last two weeks of school, WMS had a couple of different end of year parties. First there was the all-school picnic, and then his class had their own party off-campus at Young Champions (one of the places where G will be in camp this summer). He clearly had a good time at both events. We're sad to see the school year end b/c he has really excelled this year, especially in his reading. I had no idea that he'd be bringing home readers until the very last night of school, and that he'd actually be reading them so well. I just hope he continues his love of reading, and somewhere along the way, picks up his Daddy's math skills. If you know me, my math skills are a little, well, they're just downright awful.

This is how he started the night off...clean and dry.

This is how he, and every other child there (including Katelyn in the pink shirt) ended the night...wet and dirty. The socks didn't even make it home. We trashed them at the party because there was just no point in even trying to get all of that dirt out.

As soon as we got to Young Champions, the kids lined up to listen to directions for the day. Graham and Katelyn are doing pretty well at paying attention.

The class with teachers Cassie and Crystal. Graham is on the back row, and he pretty much can't be seen. He's back there, I promise.

He really liked this inflatable football target thing. Oh, and if you're wondering about the socks, it was "crazy sock day" at school, and he wanted to wear his t-ball socks.

He almost had it...

WMS Kindergarten Graduation

2008-05-23T12:00:00.000-05:00

While Graham did not graduate from kindergarten, he and some other pre-k kids in his class (and other pre-k kids from the other 4 early childhood classes) helped in the kindergarten graduation ceremony yesterday. They helped with the songs, and then sat down - quietly I might add - while the real kindergarten kiddos received their diplomas. It was very cute.

We tried to take G home following graduation, but he cried and begged us to leave him so he could play with his friends. While this did semi-hurt my feelings, I told my mom about it, and she reminded that one of her three children constantly begged to go to boarding school (both in state and out) and always begged to stay another session at camp when she was only scheduled to attend one session. She thinks it might be genetic. (How soon we forget the things we did as children. And yes, I fully admit I begged and even researched various boarding schools, and I also admit to begging to never leave camp. The camp thing was probably b/c (a) my future husband was still there hanging out and I guess I thought I should be too, and (b) maybe I always knew Waco was supposed to be my home.)

Anyway, I digress. Every class had a song to perform, and G's class sang a song called One World and performed sign language with it. I was pretty impressed. All of the kids particpating sang God Bless America. Graham busted out with that the other night, and I was like "what? do you know that song?" His response was "yes, we're singing it at graduation." And I guess it was a graduation of sorts for him too. The boy will start kindergarten in the fall. Just this week, Aaron and I both have had our "no way, it can't be" moments thinking about it.

Graham caught a glimpse of Aaron taking pictures, and was trying to look around his teacher with that goofy grin on his face. Made us laugh.

Katelyn and Graham during their performance.

His class of graduating kinders and a few of the pre-k kids that stay in the afternoons are the ones standing up .

Final T-Ball Game of the Season

2008-05-20T22:38:00.000-05:00

We survived our first season of t-ball. Graham had a great time, and he is SOOOOO proud of his little trophy. Way too cute!

These two little boys attend WMS with Graham. They're all in the same afternoon class. This pretty much summed up the end of our season and G's focus on the game. Of course, last week, we had three games three days in a row - Thursday through Saturday. Even I couldn't blame him for sitting down on the base after playing that many days in a row. Although, as you can see below, he did pretty well in the field during the final inning.

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Just Thought This Was Cute

2008-05-20T22:29:00.000-05:00

Mother's Day Weekend

2008-05-20T21:53:00.000-05:00

We were super busy Mother's Day weekend. On Saturday night, our Sunday School class went bowling. It was a lot of fun, and I'm sorry that everyone wasn't able to make it. Next time!

Aaron took it very seriously. However, I'm the one that ended up with a nasty blister on my thumb.The girls' lane was a mixture of being frustrating (kept losing our scores, breaking, eating balls and pins, etc.) and hilarious (the lady at the counter was SO sick of us after the first 3 or 4 times she had to reset everything.) I couldn't resist taking a picture of this guy's hand trying to fix the pins that were constantly getting stuck. Fortunately, there was a shift change, and they offered to move us to a new lane which worked just fine.

I was dreading this more than you can possibly imagine...singing in front of the entire church. Even though it was "sweet" to sing with our children, it took a LOT for me to get up there and do this while weighing the size of a beached whale w/incredibly swollen ankles (yes, I know whales don't have ankles) and singing...something I do not do in public. Put me on the stage of Waco Hall during college to dance in Sing or Pigskin, not a problem. Singing, however, is a very different story. Oh well, I survived and only shed tears on the way to church and I finally stopped sweating once we were able to sit back down. Enjoy the video - yeah right.

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After church, a nice lunch and opening my "cool" present (a sno-cone maker! yes, I actually wanted one), I took a very long nap. Aaron and Graham spent some time outside working in the yard, and Graham ran through the sprinklers. It cracks me up how much fun this is to him.

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One of the Many Joys of a Summer Baby...

2008-05-15T13:07:00.001-05:00

Thank goodness I work out of my home on a laptop. I did my best to ice my feet at Baylor when I was pregnant w/Graham, but I could never prop them up high enough because of my desktop computer. Isn't this lovely? Peaches on the left and strawberries on the right!

Parenthood

2008-05-12T16:43:00.000-05:00

Okay, now that I'm entering the home stretch of this second pregnancy, I can safely tell you that the misery is starting to set in. I'm doing my very best to stay positive and energetic, but that is so much easier said than done. Oh well, I know it's going to be all worth it in the end when he/she arrives!

However, I don't often give too many opinions on my blog, but I MUST get this out of my system. Are these people crazy? Did you watch the Today Show last week with their "big" annoucement? Seriously, 18 children? WHAT in the world? Okay, now I'll admit that I will be watching their new series on Discovery Health when it comes out. I'm not going to lie, as I am so intrigued by large families, so I will have to watch it for sure.

Visiting Family

2008-05-12T16:24:00.001-05:00

A couple of weeks ago (yes, I'm behind) we headed down to Houston to visit my brother's family and to have an early Mother's Day with my mom. We also celebrated Emily's birthday early, so here a few pics of the fun we had.

Emily, her second cousin Ashlynn, and Graham on the dance pad thing. HILARIOUS.

"You sunk my battleship."

Wade, Tracey & Emily gave MJ (or in their case, Mimi - yes, she goes by two different grandmother names, but it's easier that way. Otherwise, G would have two Mimis. Way too confusing.) a coffee mug with Emily's original artwork on it. It came from her school and was very cool.

We gave MJ a framed picture of her three kids from 1976. It's a black and white picture that I found in a drawer that was used in a Liberty High School yearbook ad. My brothers looked very retro-cool, and I looked like a complete weirdo in my outfit which my mom swears I must have insisted on wearing b/c it was my bi-centennial outfit for the parade. She claims I would not have worn it otherwise. Hmmm......

Graham really lacked cooperation in the picture taking department. He fell asleep in the car about 10 minutes after this picture was taken. That's what you get when he and Emily stay up past 11:00 p.m. ... and he got up at 7:30 a.m. w/me. Can you say cranky?

More T-Ball Action

2008-05-12T15:36:00.001-05:00

Here are a few more pics of Graham at his t-ball games. At the last couple of games, he has sort of lost his focus (as compared to his first few games where he had his major game face on), but it's all good b/c he at least he's having fun!

There really is a video here. Just push the play button.

Baylor Athletic Events

2008-04-29T21:20:00.000-05:00

Aaron has taken Graham to several different Baylor sporting events over the last several weeks which gives me time to either work or nap (napping happens more often) while they're gone. Not only did they attend a couple of baseball games, they went to a tennis match. Baylor is doing very well at tennis this year, and Graham, for whatever reason, is intrigued with the sport. I guess I need to sign him up for lessons at some point. Here are a few pics that Aaron has taken during their time together at the different events.

Running the bases after a game.

Sliding into home.

Practicing his serve. He wore his hat backwards b/c that's how all of the guy tennis players were wearing their hats.

I don't know what was going on at the baseball game last weekend, but they had all sorts of fun activities for kiddos. Practicing his pitching skills. I love that his left foot is off the ground.

Tiger

2008-04-29T21:12:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to post this for weeks. A few weeks ago, Graham had a day off of school, so we were thinking of fun and different things to do. He found the face paint from last summer's birthday party, so I attempted to make him a tiger as per his request. I think I need to go back to the pirate face painting instead.

Co-Worker Fun

2008-04-29T20:28:00.000-05:00

Last week, I headed down to Dell for work and a lunch with my co-workers to celebrate Baby Braunstein. Our department director, Dan, had everyone over for dinner one night with their families. It was great. Not only did I get the chance to see all of my old Dell buddies (since I work remotely, I never see anyone), I was able to see their spouses and kids. And considering that two of the attorneys used to be Baker Botts attorneys during my BB days - including the first attorney I ever worked for out of college - I know their husbands, so it was lots of fun to catch up with everyone.

L-R: Connie (new to Dell since my days out there), Amy (We went to Baylor together and worked at BB-Dallas together), Anna (my first boss at BB-Dallas who transfered to the Austin office shortly after I did, then went in-house at Dell while I was working out there for BB), Max (She's been a paraglegal for Dell for years.), Kelly (former BB-Austin attorney who is now in-house at Dell), and Allison (also new to Dell since my first time working out there). I had a terrible cold and was pretty much miserable my three days in Austin, but it was still great to see everyone.

This is Dan. He's the director of the trademark department, and so much fun!

And what would a trip to Austin be without a stop at Baker Botts? I probably should have just gone home early, but for some reason, Baker Botts feels like home to me when I'm in Austin and it's like a magnet. I just can't stay away. (For the record, as soon as I got back to Waco, I stayed in bed pretty much from Thursday night to Sunday night trying to get myself well).

This is Mary the HR manager at BB-Austin.

Lisa, Meg and Lynne. Lisa is shares HR duties with Mary, but is primarily responsible for the legal assistants. She hired me from the Dallas office, but only after my resume was sent to her from about five different attorneys in Dallas when I was trying to get down to Austin after Aaron and I got engaged. At the time, the IP practice in Austin was very small so they put me in corporate (oh the misery!). Thank goodness Anna transferred too and got me back into trademarks. Of course, shortly after that I became the recruiter.

Meg is the office administrator and one of my dearest friends to this day. You probably recognize her from our trips to Salado.

Lynne is a senior legal assistant who came on board my last year at BB.

I'm guessing that is my last trip to Austin before this baby arrives. After he/she gets here, then we'll have to make a trip to introduce him/her to all of my Dell and BB friends. I think Graham was all of six weeks old when he went to Baker Botts for the first time.

Baby Update

2008-04-21T10:52:00.000-05:00

We just got back from the doctor, and we're in the home stretch of this pregnancy. After going every week for the last four weeks to have the heartbeat monitored (thanks to the fact that I was exposed to Fifths Disease when G had it over Spring Break - so going every week is not "normal" in this stage), we're back on track and will be going every two weeks. After that, it will be up to once a week until he/she arrives. Crazy!

Anyway, all is well and I am gaining weight and retaining water just like I did with Graham. I guess it won't be too much of a surprise this time if the baby is over 9 pounds. We'll shall see.

And for those friends of mine that ask to see pics of my pregnant self, sorry, just not happening right now. :-) Also, for those of you that ask if we have names yet, nope, we're still working on that too. Hopefully by the end of June, we'll have that one figured out!

Fuzzy Friends Animal Rescue Field Trip

2008-04-18T14:00:00.000-05:00

Today, I went on a field trip with Graham's class to a no-kill animal shelter here in Waco called Fuzzy Friends Rescue Center. It was such a great experience for the kids, and this is by far the nicest shelter I've ever seen.

Both of our animals are rescue animals (I believe strongly in mutts and unwanted cats that need a good home), and I was scared that I would have problems going into the shelter b/c it would make me so sad, but it didn't. It was wonderful, and the programs they have are great. The kids were encouraged to bring something to give to the animals, and I think they all really enjoyed learning about the shelter, caring for animals, etc. Their volunteer opportunities are far-reaching (i.e. they don't just need you to change the litter box, although I'm sure they'd welcome that), so maybe I could find some time after my life settles down to volunteer out there since Aaron is very much against us having another animal for a while.

First stop was Cameron Park for a little playtime to get the wiggles out before heading out to Fuzzy Friends.

Not a bad line for 3, 4 and 5 year old children. For the most part, they actually appear to be listening, too!

Craft time at Fuzzy Friends. They made dog puppets.

Here is the education coordinator, Becky, talking to us about going into the big dog run which is just behind her. The large breed dogs are out there, while the smaller dogs are in inside kennels. Graham was not really into all of the barking.

Now, this is more G's speed. While, just like his mom, he ADORES his dog, his heart belongs to cats. He petted almost every one in there, but I couldn't get a good shot b/c he was working the room so fast. I think he wanted to make sure he shared the love.

I just loved this picture of the cats hanging out. First of all, I love the fact that they are able to roam outside their cages just like they would at a home. The one in the basket had a little bob tail. It was way cute. Secondly, I love that cats have attitude. You could totally see it with these cats who were busy sunning themselves.

This dog that G is petting (see the back of his head) is named Nike. He goes to various schools in Waco with volunteers to help kids with their reading. Many children are intimidated to read to their classmates or even their teachers, and many do not have parents who help them read at night, so a volunteer takes Nike to a school and the kids read to him. I've never seen such a gentle dog in my life.

This is Socks. He has three legs, and the kids were all very intrigued with him. This staff member is explaining the importance of keeping your animal in a fence b/c Socks was hit by a car b/c his owners did not have a fence for him.

T-Ball

2008-04-16T09:03:00.000-05:00

Graham had his first t-ball game last night. This is definitely a Graham and Aaron project, and they're having a lot of fun. Aaron is helping out the main coach, and he and G practice every night at home too. It's really cute. Graham takes his t-ball very seriously. When all of the other kids were out on the field waving to their families, he turned around a couple of times and saw where I was sitting, but the minute I waved at him, he went right back to the game. The boy was way more focused than I thought he would be. Personally, I was pretty impressed. He plays third base, and he was disappointed that no balls came his way. Oh, and they are the Bulls. The coach asked the kids to come up with a name, and G said the Bulls, which was voted on by the team and it won. Aaron and I aren't sure if he's a Chicago Bulls fan or what (the red and black color combo), but he came up with the name Bulls all on his on.

First Trip to the Dentist

2008-04-03T18:40:00.001-05:00

Today we took Graham to his first dentist appointment. Yes, I know, I am probably a good six months to a year late, but oh well. He did sooooo well. Aaron met me up there after his lunch meeting for back-up b/c I had no idea how Graham would react. However, he shocked me and did very well and we got a great report. He even took xrays, but I didn't take any pics of that. I was trying to keep the pics to a minimum b/c I didn't want to be a super distraction.

Waiting for Dr. W.

Dr. W. is about to start counting G's teeth and is showing him all of the instruments he would be using.

So, here's the very interesting part....the Dr. was going over our paperwork at the end of the appointment and said our address. He said "I grew up there." Aaron and I thought he meant he grew up on the street, but he meant OUR house. His parents actually had the house built in 1952-1953, and they were the very first family to live here. As a matter of fact, Graham's room was once Dr. W's room! He happens to be an historian, so he gave us all sorts of fun details about our house. For example, the brick on the outside was salvaged from an old elementary school that was being torn down at the time. They were giving away the bricks, you just had to haul them off. He estimates that the bricks are from the 1800s. He thinks his mom still has the original blue prints and is going to see if he can have copies made. How fun is that?

Anyway, not only did G get a great report (with the exception of knowing for certain that braces are in G's future), we got a history lesson on our home from the original family who lived here. Fun stuff! (okay, maybe it's only fun to me b/c I was a history minor in college??? Nah, I don't know if Aaron even took a history class in college, and he even found it interesting.)

Kyndel's 5th Birthday Party

2008-04-01T15:51:00.001-05:00

On Sunday, Graham went to Kyndel's 5th birthday party at the Art Center. Kyndel is in G's Sunday School class and will be going to WMS next year with him. Actually, he has a couple of friends joining him at WMS next year, including Jenna, so he's very excited about that.

Back to the party. Kyndel is into bugs, so one of the projects they made was a gigantic butterfly. Here are the steps of the project...

Painting the background for the butterfly ... not that we knew at the time it was going to become a butterfly.

While the background was drying, the next step was creating a color wheel.

After learning the basics like "yellow and blue make green", the kids then painted one wing for their butterfly.

Finally, the kids with the help of their parents, folded the butterfly in half and created a mirror effect. Here he is with his finished product.

They did lots of other stuff including a real cricket hunt, dancing, and of course, more painting. Graham really enjoyed himself, and we're thinking of signing him up for camp at the Art Center this summer.

Welcome Kate!

2008-04-01T15:44:00.001-05:00

Introducing Katherine "Kate" Counseller. She is super tiny and super cute. She weighed 5 lbs. 8 ozs. at birth. I've never held a baby that small in my life. G was 9 lbs. 1 oz., so I don't know anything about small babies. (Oh, and speaking of the size of my first child, according to my doctor, I am measuring, weighing, etc. exactly where I did this time in my pregnancy with Graham. Holy cow, does that mean I'm in for another big baby?). Be sure to check out the Counseller blog for more info about this sweet baby girl. Congratulations, Jennifer, Jeremy, Jack & Brett on your latest addition to the family!

Darwin - Easter 2008

2008-03-23T20:38:00.000-05:00

I meant to include this in my Easter blog. Here is our neighborhood gorilla, Darwin, dressed up celebrating the Easter season. Happy Easter!

Easter Activities 2008

2008-03-23T18:05:00.001-05:00

Our Easter started with a quick trip to Liberty. Graham and I headed down on Thursday afternoon and spent Good Friday hanging out with Uncle Grant, shopping in Beaumont with M.J., and visiting my friend Julie who just had her second baby a week ago.

Grant came over to do a little work at M.J.'s house, and asked if Graham wanted to go to the hardware store with him. I told Graham it was the "Liberty Lowe's", so of course he was like "yeah, I'll go." My brother is very, very quiet and very, very reserved, and when Graham is around people he doesn't see very often, he too, can be very quiet (shocker, I know). I'm pretty sure that not a single word was exchanged between of the two of them, but I know that Graham had a great time. He came to me and said "you have to drive through wood to get to the store." It's got a lumber yard in front, instead of having wood inside the store like he's used to seeing at the big home improvement chains.

Graham, MJ and I headed to Beaumont to do a little shopping and eating. Graham loves the Beaumont Chick-fil-A (and I agree that its playground is about 10 times better than ours here in Waco), so of course we ate there. Graham was so perfect in the stores we went to, so as a reward for his great behavior, we hit Marble Slab before heading back to Liberty to dye eggs. Once again, no pictures were taken as I was too busy shopping.

G and I made it back to Waco on Saturday night and spent Easter Sunday as just the three of us with an egg hunt at home, church, and some yummy BBQ by Aaron.

Neither one cooperated with the picture taking, so tough, it's going on the blog. Next time you need to smile when the photographer says so.

Please don't worry. That is not a shirt that my mom is wearing. It's her smock so as to not get egg dye on her white shirt. She wasn't overly thrilled that I took a pic while dressed in her happy-homemaker-smocked-glory.

His favorite egg was the one with this name on it.

Julie and sweet Emily.

Julie's husband said we needed a picture of me getting some practice in before our new baby arrives in a few months. Scary!

The first egg found on his egg hunt was his favorite Graham egg.

So handsome!

I guess Sadie wanted in a family picture, since Lillie got in the last one from our camping trip. We took several pictures and she just kept winding her way around our legs and the table. I think she might still be bitter that we added a dog, then a baby and I have no idea what she's going to do when another one moves in!

Snow Day 2008

2008-03-23T17:48:00.000-05:00

I totally forgot to post Aaron and Graham playing in the snow we had a few weeks ago. By the time G got outside to play, a lot of it had melted, but they still have fun....at least until Graham's hands got cold and he soon became miserable. His little mittens are good at protecting against the cold, but not against wet snow.

I'm Back! (again)

2008-03-17T21:53:00.000-05:00

How many times have I taken Blogger breaks and actually used the title "I'm back"? Must think of a new and creative title. Anyway, I am back and you should be up to speed now on all of the happenings in the Braunstein family. Enjoy!

-Gretch

Palm Sunday 2008

2008-03-17T21:39:00.001-05:00

We had a great Palm Sunday. Graham particpated in the Palm processional and sang in the choir. Our church also had their annual Easter Egg hunt following the service. Sunday afternoon, our Sunday School class had a family social and diaper shower honoring the Counseller family at a park. Baby Kate is scheduled to arrive on Wednesday morning. We can't wait to meet her!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

He decided to ditch the egg hunting and play football with Aaron instead.

You would think one of these kids was having a birthday party, wouldn't you? I promise, Jennifer is in there somewhere opening baby gifts for Kate. Who knew that diapers could be so exciting to children!

There's Jennifer. Good luck on Wednesday. We're all thinking about you.

Spring Break 2008

2008-03-17T20:44:00.001-05:00

This year, we actually took G with us on Spring Break since afterall, he's the one who really gets the official break from school, not us. (last year, he vacationed at his grandparents while we went to Chicago) We stole my brother's plan, and we borrowed Aaron's parents' 31' travel trailer and went camping at Inks Lake. Let me say, this is the ONLY way to camp when one is 24 weeks pregnant. Having a nice bathroom at the foot of the bed, was perfect! G got a double bed to himself, we had AC, heat, running water (with a very hot shower, I might add), and it was awesome! The view of the lake from our campsite was great, too.

Here's our home away from home:

Here's the nice view from our front door:

Here's a glimpse into a few of the activities Graham participated in while camping:

Football in the "front yard."

Basketball at the playground.

Bike rides throughout the park.

Canoe rides on the lake. FYI, adults were not required to wear life jackets, but I just knew that if that canoe tipped (and G did his share of rowing), and with my current weight situation, I would sink to the bottom of that lake, so I opted to keep mine on. No need to take risks.

Fishing with G's new Pirates of the Caribbean fishing pole.

And of course, s'mores! We had them every night. The last night, the pregnant woman in me thought that putting peanut butter on the graham cracker might be a good idea. Let me just say, if you like Reese's peanut butter cups, you will LOVE peanut butter s'mores. Man, I should be on Top Chef.

Outside of the park excursions:

The Vanishing Texas River Cruise and eagle/bird watching tour.

One of several osprey we saw.

A natural springs waterfall on the Colorado River.

Trip to Llano:

We went into Llano after the cruise to see the eagle's nest (since we didn't get to see any eagles on the river). These are the two babies. Did you know that eagles mate for life and they return to the same nest year after year? I thought those were pretty interesting facts. We also did some shopping in Llano at two antique stores, but I didn't take any pics of that...mostly b/c I was too busy shopping!

Just some other pics from the trip:

Graham really liked seeing all of the ducks on the lake.

Lillie made the trip with us. For the first part of the trip, she was enjoying the scenary outside the trailer on a lead that Aaron's parents' use for their cat (yes, I said cat. Their 16 year old cat, Benni, travels with them all over the country and to Canada and apparently enjoys it. We decided to leave Sadie, our cat, at home this trip.) Well, Lillie "lost the privilege" (a term we picked up at Montessori and use w/Graham, but have now imposed on our animals as well) very quickly when she broke out of the lead, the leash, and her collar to run and not really so much play as fight with a spaniel of some kind passing by. Lillie is really not an aggressive dog, and gets along well with my mom's dog and my brother's dog, but she didn't care for this dog for some reason. After she "lost the privilege" she was pretty much grounded inside the trailer. You should have heard Graham talk to her about her choices. Very funny!

Family Members

2008-03-17T20:08:00.000-05:00

Graham adores his Uncle Wade. Wade plays, plays and plays with him until he's either (a) wound up beyond belief or (b) tired beyond belief.

This is one of my first cousins, Dinah. She was visiting her in-laws in Belton, and drove to Lorena to meet me one morning to catch up. Dinah, her husband, and their four children were in the process of moving from D.C. to Honolulu where Ed is now based. They lived in Italy when we were there for honeymoon, and we spent a day with them in Venice. I personally think it's only appropriate that when we celebrate our 10 year anniversary next January, that we visit them in Honolulu.

Tour of Liberty

2008-03-17T19:26:00.000-05:00

I really thought that my faithful blog readers needed a tour of my hometown, Liberty, Texas (pop. approximately 8,000+; when I left for Baylor in 1993, it was 7,945. I know this b/c I took a pic beside the sign as an "I'm never coming back" statement.). Although, I think I only have a total of three readers, and two of those grew up in Liberty with me. Oh well. Enjoy the tour anyway!

I think most people know that I grew up in a farming family (note: I did NOT grow up on a farm...we lived in the city limits. You know that I would never make it in the country). We don't farm any more, and I had not been out anywhere near the farm in probably 15 years, so I decided that I wanted to see it again and drove out there with Aaron. This is the entrance to the farm, and the other pic is the "shop." I spent lots and lots of time in the shop where we stored all sorts of farm equipment (tractors, combines, welding supplies, etc.) in there.

This is the Sam Houston Regional Library located on Governor's Road. Many of my church friends have heard the story that this is where the Dennison children seventh grade Texas History projects go to live after the history fair. In case anyone wants a good Texas history fair project, take my recommendation and have your child research the state seashell (Lightning Whelk).

This is the Governor's Mansion. Yes, for those of you who do not know this, Liberty does in fact have a replica of the Texas Governor's Mansion once home to Gov. Price Daniel (for you Baylor folks, he is not to be confused with his brother Gov. Bill Daniel - who was the governor of Guam, not Texas.).

And what do you do when you're bored in Liberty? You go with your friend to the Governor's Mansion and her mom to take black and white pics. Man, we had some good hair back in 1993.

Liberty High School

Here's our football stadium which is next door to my old middle school which used to be the old high school and is now the "new" San Jacinto elementary school. Does that make sense to anyone else but those of us from Liberty that actually know this history?

Celebration of Works 2008

2008-02-28T15:48:00.000-06:00

This week WMS held their annual Celebration of Works, where Graham gets to show us all of the fun works he's been doing lately. He did two math works and one language arts work.

This is called the "tens board." It's where he looks at the numbers on the board, and then creates the actual value using 10 bars (made of 10 beads) and unit bars.

This is the broad prism and pink tower work. It's a very early introduction to geometry. There is a book that gives the children patterns to create, and he loves it. He made several different patterns, but we only got good pics of these two. No pressure here, but I'm thinking engineer.

Finally he did moveable alphabet for us. We hear him talk about this one a lot. His teacher gives him a pattern ("it" is the pattern she gave him the other night), and then she says aloud different works that end in that pattern. For Celebration of Works, Aaron and I took turns reading the words to him, and then he spelled out the words just by sound. After all of that, he writes the words.

Aaron's 35th Birthday

2008-02-28T15:26:00.000-06:00

Aaron turned 35 last week, and it was a pretty low-key family event. We had a great family dinner to celebrate and then had some yummy homemade cupcakes. A teacher at Graham's school has a cupcake company, and let me just say, they are so good!

Sold Out - Gold Out

2008-02-17T21:39:00.000-06:00

On Saturday night, Aaron and Graham headed off to the Baylor v. UT basketball game. It was a sold out game, and Farm Bureau sponosered "gold out" for the night by giving away gold shirts to everyone in attendance. I made sure my boys were dressed in gold before leaving the house just in case they didn't get shirts to wear (I had no idea how they were handing them out). I stayed home and watched it on T.V.

Say what you want about Baylor athletics and our not so stellar winning record in all sports, but when you look at where this team was in July of 2003 and you see where they are now, you can't help but be proud of these boys, Coach Drew and his assistants, etc.

I stopped watching the game when we were down by 13. However, I just couldn't help myself, and I turned it back on to find Baylor only 4 points behind with three minutes left. We got within 1 point, but we just couldn't pull it out. Aaron said it was the most intense three minutes of basketball he's ever witnessed.

Thanks to the Counseller family for the GREAT tickets. The Bears may not have won, but the Braunstein boys had fun!

Obviously the little man was exhausted from all of the excitement of the game. He and Aaron both complained of sore hands from banging on the seats in front of them to make noise during the last few minutes.

Happy Valentine's Day 2008!

2008-02-14T14:51:00.000-06:00

This morning, Aaron and I participated in Graham's class Valentine's Day party. Lots of activities and lots of fun. As usual, the kids rotated through several stations including snack, bag decorating, crafts, story time and of course, the card exchange.

How precious are these bags? I love my co-room mom because she takes care of all of the cute craft ideas.Graham and Katelyn at the craft table. They decorated picture frames with message hearts like those nasty (am I the only person who thinks they're gross?), yet required Sweetheart candies of the Valentine's season. Then they glued their pictures inside the frame. Very cute.

Mailman Graham delivering his Valentine's to all of his classmates.

Their current unit is on fish. Katelyn and Graham are being fish during a song about fish that the class did for the parents.

They performed another song for us that had a million and one hand motions. Another mom and I were impressed that the kids were even attempting to keep up.

Aaron had to leave early for a lunch meeting, but Graham really wanted to show him a special math work that he just recently had a lesson on.

19.5 Weeks

2008-02-12T10:27:00.000-06:00

Today we went for our sonogram which measured the baby right between 19-20 weeks. Everything looks great, and I'm happy to report that I didn't change my mind about finding out what we're having once I got on the table. I think Aaron thought maybe I would cave in once we got there because when I told the guy "we're not finding out", Aaron's response was "you really are committed to that, aren't you?".

And if you know anything about me at all, you know that I'm a major planner and a semi-control freak, so this is REALLY going out on a limb for me. The ultrasound tech guy did use the word "she" once, but Aaron said he also used "he". I think I'm so used to "he" referencing my child because of Graham, that I just tune that out.

The heartbeat was good and the baby is about one pound. The guy was very good at pointing out organs, limbs, etc. to us, but it still looked weird to me. The baby wasn't in the mood to look at the "camera", so we didn't get any real good profile pictures to post. I wonder if this means that he/she will be more reserved like his/her Daddy or maybe he/she has already gotten tired of my picture taking obsession? At Graham's sonogram, his mouth was moving non-stop, and I can easily say the boy hasn't stopped talking since.

As a side note, we pulled out Graham's sonogram video for him to see a few days ago. He actually said "I look like an alien." When the heartbeat came on, it freaked him out because he ran out of the room and said "please tell me when the movie is over." We're not sure if he'll want to see the video of this baby or not.

So, that's the update for 19.5 weeks.

What to do ....

2008-02-11T15:59:00.000-06:00

...when the most of the country is experiencing record low temps? Play in the sprinkler, of course! (Central Texas weather makes very little sense, but it makes Graham oh so happy sometimes.) Oh, and bake some cookies with mom, too!

For some reason, this is one of my favorite pics. To me, it's a like looking into a crystal ball. But in the future, he's wearing a football uniform and just had a terrible punt. (He's left footed like Daniel Sepulveda - Baylor and Steelers punter who has made appearances on here before - so we always encourage him to be a punter. Seems like less physical contact to me.) I think this look is really in response to my crazy picture taking. Seriously, I haven't taken pics in weeks. I told him that he should have just enjoyed the vacation from the camera while it lasted.

For those of you who have asked to see "baby bump" pics, this is probably about as close as you're gonna get for the blog.

He was quite the helper with the cookies for church. I (and the baby, b/c this one likes sweets like G did back in 2003 when he was growing to a large 9lbs. 1oz. in my belly) even sacrificed a beater for him to lick.

Celebration of Life - 4.5 years

2008-01-28T11:42:00.000-06:00

Since Graham is a summer baby, he's never done the full Montessori celebration of life ceremony. We did a scaled down version of it when he was a toddler, but since then, we haven't done one for him. Aaron had heard some people at church saying that they celebrate their children's half birthdays at school so that they don't miss out on the fun since they have July babies too. So, Aaron mentioned it to me and we talked to G's teacher about doing his mid-year.

Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to prepare, so his poster wasn't the most up to date, but we did do a digital slide show with some more current pics. I obviously don't have pictures printed very often.

It was a really cool ceremony, but I didn't cry like I heard that a lot of moms do. Maybe that's more in elementary school, I don't know.

He's laying down the months of the year, so he'll know where to start and finish as he (aka the world) rotates around the sun (aka the candle) to represent each year of his life.

After singing the Montessori celebration of life song and the traditional happy birthday to you, Graham got to blow out his candles.

The final part of the ceremony is serving your friends their snacks. He was able to ask two friends to help him, but he had to do most of the work. I was pretty impressed with how well this worked. I was thinking "oh no, this could be a trainwreck."

Birthday Party Fun

2008-01-28T11:26:00.000-06:00

I'm finally getting around to posting a few pics from the bowling birthday party and the bounce house birthday party that Aaron took Graham to a couple of weekends ago.

He really enjoyed bowling. He sets up wooden blocks in the house and "bowls" them down with his tiny Baylor basketball.This is a HUGE deal, and I'm sad that I wasn't there to see it. (Something tells me we'll attend more parties at the new indoor jumping place and I'll get my turn.) Graham has never been a fan of bounce houses. He says that the "air condition is too loud." Apparently he had a ball at this party, too, and went on almost everything. That's a really big accomplishment for him. I guess you could say he's growing up!

SPARE!

2008-01-21T12:49:00.000-06:00

While I was out of town this past weekend, Aaron took Graham to not one, but TWO, five year old birthday parties. Is he the man or what? Aaron took several pics from both events, but I haven't had time to upload everything just yet. However, I thought you might enjoy sharing in Graham's excitement when he got a spare at his buddy's bowling party.

Baby Braunstein Update - 16 Weeks.

2008-01-14T13:17:00.000-06:00

I know that I just sort of slipped the news in one of my Christmas posts without elaborating too much. Things have just been crazy, so I'm finally getting some time to update about the little arrival due in early July. We are about to hit the 16 week mark in a couple of days, and everything is going well. I was soooooo sick this time around, and I slept most of November and December away...a good part of January has been in la la land as well. However, I'm slowly gaining my energy back, and knock on wood, I haven't been sick in over a week.

Aaron and I have been to the doctor several times (even an extra visit at 10 weeks to ease my mind after what happened to us last summer), and things are trucking right along. We went today, and the heartbeat is strong. The doctor told me that he heard the baby kick when he was checking the heartbeat. I have no clue how you hear a kick, but I'm going to just take him at his word, as he's the one with the M.D., not me.

Our next appointment is for the 20 week sonogram. Unlike with Graham, I think we're going to let this baby's gender be a surprise. I'm pretty sure this will be our last one, so we might as well have fun with it. Aaron is not 100% on board with the idea only because naming a baby is so difficult. Other than that, he's like "whatever, Gretchen."

So, there's not much to report, but here are the two pictures we have of Baby Braunstein 2. The first one is at 7 weeks, and it's that little fuzzy thing. The second one is at 10 weeks, and you could really see the baby moving and its features. It freaked me out a bit to see how much it grew in just three weeks.

New Years Eve 2007

2008-01-08T20:09:00.000-06:00

We finally came home on December 30. Whew! On New Year's Eve we went out to the Felton's farm for a laid back kid friendly cook-out. It was a lot of fun, and as wiped out as I was from all of the activity of the week before, it was a perfect end to 2007.

The boy loves his smores.

Obviously, the boy had a few too many Minute Maid Fruit Falls at the cook-out. This is how we found him when we pulled into our driveway from all of the partying at the Feltons. Don't worry, we're going to watch him a little bit closer next time.

Fun in Dallas

2008-01-08T20:04:00.000-06:00

After Fort Worth, we made our way to Dallas on the 29th to attend a wedding for Aaron's family. We made a stop in Arlington to visit one of Aaron's old college roommates, Jeff Shelton. He and his wife Courtney had their first baby on December 10. Her name is Ella Claire...love the middle name. Surely they named her after me, right?

Ella & Jeff

After our stop in Arlington, we made our way to Dallas to stay with the Mortons (Aaron, Jeff and Jason all lived together at Baylor). Graham stayed with the Mortons (thank you guys!!) while we went to the wedding. As always, the boy really enjoyed playing with the Morton kids, Caroline and Matthew.

Christmas in Fort Worth

2008-01-08T19:36:00.000-06:00

On the 27th, we headed up to Fort Worth with my brother Wade and his family to see my mom and grandmother to celebrate a late Christmas with them. The kids had a ball playing together. Our two families stayed together in a suite at a Residence Inn, so the children got lots of time together.

Emily's new High School Muscial backpack. HSM seemed to be a theme for Emily and for Graham this Christmas.

My mom bought Graham some more Tinker Toys to add to his other set that used to belong in her school room. This new set is super cool b/c it has flexible parts. I think Graham and Emily spent more time playing Tinker Toys than anything else. Isn't funny how the basic toys never get old?

MeeMaw got a new telephone with lots of features. I just had to take a picture of Wade showing her how to use it. About 15 or so years ago, my mom bought her a different phone that had pre-programmable emergency buttons. Well, Wade being the most "techie" of the family, and the person that can't resist pushing any button he sees, was in charge of programming the buttons. He decided (in all of his college wisdom) to "test" the buttons he had programmed w/911. He hung up immediately, but within less than 5 minutes there were plenty of emergency personnel on my grandmother's doorstep. It was a mini-nightmare, but hilarious at the same time (not to my grandmother - she didn't see any humor in it at all). Again, it's just one of those things that he's yet to live down. (You guys probably think I pick on my brother a lot...but really, it's all the truth and he deserves it after all of the pain and suffering he put me through as a child.)

This is a perfect picture to capture my brother's personality. It was taken from the loft at the hotel. Andrea, Aaron's sister, gave Graham a John Madden Football (1995 w/the Oilers!) game that plugs directly into any T.V. Wade was in heaven with this thing. As a matter of fact, he sent Graham to us at 9:00 p.m. to ask for it. He and Graham are playing as Emily watched (w/a bit of boredom, I might add.)

MeeMaw with her two great-grandchildren. She's 93 and extremely independent.

Graham really wanted to go visit the "junkyards", so on our way to the Stockyards, we stopped for lunch at Joe T. Garcia's. You just can't get better than that. YUMMY! Sorry that we don't have any pics from the Stockyards, we just did a quick drive through until he fell asleep.

Our Family Christmas in Waco

2008-01-08T16:15:00.000-06:00

On Christmas Eve day, we headed back to Waco to get ready for church and for Christmas Day at our house.

Getting cookies ready for Santa Claus.

Graham is so related to his mother's side of the family. He slept in until around 8:30 a.m., but he was so ready to check out his presents. Here's an action shot of him once he turned the corner to the living room and saw his Wiggle Racer and other gifts that Santa left for him.

Amy Schisler came down from Dallas to spend Christmas Day with us. She brought Graham her favorite childhood games, and he had so much fun playing them (once we found all of the cherries that G spilled on the ground).

He got this screaming rocket thing at Aaron's parent's house, but I told him he couldn't open it until Amy got to Waco. It's super fun if I do say so myself.

Amy's turn. They're covering their ears b/c it really does scream.

Graham is very particular when opening gifts. Instead of cutting the ribbon off the gift, he would just cut small pieces off at a time. It took a while, but he finally got to the gift.

I had a great Christmas Day, too. Aaron surprised me with an iPhone. I screamed when I opened it. I was addicted to my Blackberry back in its infant days of the early 2000's, but I haven't had one since we moved here over five years ago. I'm completely addicted to email (and yes I've heard there's a 12 step program for it, but I have not enrolled nor do I plan to), so this is my favorite new toy.

Austin Outings

2008-01-08T15:52:00.000-06:00

On the 23rd, Aaron's parents took off for Taos, and we decided to stay another day at their house b/c we were kind of tired of driving. So we did what we like to do best, play around Austin. Okay, maybe I like it more than Aaron. I still say "we just moved here from Austin", but in reality (oh, how it is so hard for me to say this), I've lived in Waco longer than I lived in Austin. Still, that town has so many great memories for me and I have such great friends that still live there. We're never able to see everyone we need to see which makes us feel bad, but we did our best to make our way around town. And after going to Breed & Co. and dealing with unhappy shoppers and salespeople, I realized that perhaps I don't miss Austin as much as I used to.

First stop, Shady Grove. And have I turned into a typical Austin tourist or what? When I lived there, I probably would have never taken my camera in unless it was a birthday or something. Instead, I take it in now so I can capture Graham and the "Austin experience." What has happened to me?

Nothing bothers me more than when he picks up an ice cream bowl (or cereal bowl) to drink what's left. We gave him a straw this time. While it's not perfect, it did seem a bit more civilized.

He wants the tie-dyed one.

Graham giving his best impression of the Santa topiary outside in the trailer park section of the Grove.

On to Carol and Dave Dwyer's house where Graham got a lesson in Wii. Of course, now he wants one. I've wanted one for months, and now that G and Aaron have played it, they both agree that it might be a good investment for the house. Perhaps that will be a 5th birthday present.

I wish I had gotten a better picture of Graham's wind up when they played baseball. Dave usually laughed so hard that he struck out.

We stopped by the Todd and Jennifer Ramberg's house while they were in between parties and dinners. Graham and William had fun playing together. William's younger sister, Abbie was asleep.

Braunstein Family Christmas 2007

2008-01-08T15:22:00.000-06:00

We left Liberty on December 21st to head for the Braunstein family Christmas in Wimberley. We had a minor setback on I-10 in Katy when we stopped to eat. My car would NOT start when it was time to leave. Lucky for us, my brother was close by and between he and Aaron's efforts, they cleaned up our battery and we were on our way. I had originally just called Wade thinking he was going to have to take us to a hotel and rent us a car on Saturday (he works for Enterprise), but it all worked out and we were able to make it to Wimberley by 11:00 p.m. that night. I debated about taking a picture of the boys working on the car, but to tell the truth, I was just way too tired, so I just sort of dozed in the car with Graham.

On the 22nd we had the big Braunstein celebration with everyone. It was lots of fun and Graham got a present that he was NOT expecting, but is very excited about.

First it was stocking time. I just love the expression on his face.

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I guess I stopped filming a little too early. Sorry about that.

Yep, that's right. Graham found out the news with the rest of the family. Two July babies (Graham is July 22)! I'm praying for a cooler summer than 2003 when G was born.

In 2002 we started a tradition of giving our families ornaments from our family. This one is how we announced that we were having a baby (which was a huge shock to everyone). We've given one every year since then, and every year people seem to think it's going to say a new baby is on the way. This year, they were right!

The 2007 ornament.

Christmas was a little crazy. I couldn't even walk to where I was supposed to sit b/c it made me feel claustrophobic. Graham was way into it, and he did a great job of waiting his turn to open his gifts (Aaron's family's long-standing Christmas tradition).

The whole family.

What would my post be without another update on the dart gun? Please note that Allison is 14 and her brother, David, is 12. They played "dodge the dart" in the living room.

Allison was pretty fast.

New Posts

2007-12-31T11:29:00.000-06:00

Okay, it's been a while, so here are a few new posts leading up to Christmas. I'll try my best to get all of the other pictures posted sometime before the end of January! :-)

Update on the Nerf Dart Gun

2007-12-31T11:12:00.000-06:00

Following the class party, we left for Liberty. It was just a little detour in our regular holiday plans. A very close friend of mine since first grade, Julie Hall Hebert (you've seen her in my annual Liberty girls posts during the summer), lost her grandmother suddenly, so we went down to Liberty for me to attend the funeral with my mother. It was a very nice service, and it was so nice to see my good friend and her family, despite the circumstances.

While Mother and I were at the funeral, Aaron and Graham stayed at the house to get things packed up for our trip to Wimberley for Christmas with Aaron's family. The dart gun came in very handy (Thanks, Santa!) while Aaron was taking care of things. Apparently he gave G permission to use my car as a target - would not have been my first choice. When we got home, the three adults went inside, and G stayed outside practicing his shooting skills (he obviously aspires to be like his mom in the bulls eye department).

Well, in comes G - and I wish I had a video of this - here's how the conversation went down:

G in a serious voice and using his hands for emphasis: "Guys. We have a big problem outside. I need your help."

Mom: "Graham, what's the problem?" (I didn't see any blood, there were no tears, so really how bad could it be?)

G: "Well, there's a dart on the roof of the garage."

Mom and Dad immediatly die laughing while my mom yells in a delighted voice "He IS just like Wade! You're right!" and runs to hug him.

As I have mentioned in numerous posts, the boy and his Uncle Wade are cut from the same cloth. Wade has cracked at least two windshields from throwing things over the garage and he even got his four-wheel drive truck stuck in the ditch in the backyard which required a trip to John Deere to borrow a tractor to get it out (yes, we're from a very small town where one can borrow a tractor no questions asked). Thank goodness our house doesn't have a ditch. Wade's dear daughter, Emily, would (a) never been thrilled with Nerf gun and (b) she would never shoot it on the roof with the intention of seeing if she could "get it over MJ's car."

It's the tiny speck on the roof. And as a side note, he did the same thing in Wimberley three days later, but I didn't get a picture of that b/c it fell into the gutter at their house.

Graham is clearly giving MJ some shooting tips.

WMS EC4 Holiday Party 2007

2007-12-31T10:48:00.000-06:00

On the last day of school for 2007, Graham's class had their annual holiday party. It was a lot of fun, and it seemed to go off without a hitch. Yea! The party included snacks, cookie decorating, crafts, storytime (I read again this year, but I alternated with another parent so I was able to spend more time w/G and Aaron during the party), and a program by the kids. After the party was over, the kids were able to sqeeze in some work time to show off their skills for their families.

The mom helping Graham is my co-room mom, Mendy. I could not have made it through the fall without her. Because of all of the craziness in our personal lives, which meant a lot of time out of town, she took over for the fall and took care of things for the classroom. I am so thankful for her!

This was during the "Must be Santa Claus" portion of their program. He's with David, his running buddy and sometimes partner-in-crime in the classroom.

He seems to really enjoy doing geography works.

Church Christmas Party

2007-12-31T10:37:00.000-06:00

The week before Christmas, a very sweet couple in our church hosted a Christmas party for the children of the church at their home complete with a visit from Santa Claus! The kids all seem to have a great time, and the Nerf dart gun that he gave Graham has been one of the favorites of this holiday season. (I actually had the opportunity to meet the elf that picked out, and let's just say that elf should get a major bonus from the man in the red suit for choosing such an awesome toy for Graham!)

The Waggeners had one of the most incredible snow village displays ever. Graham was in awe.

This is as close as we got to Santa Claus's lap all season. There were no tears shed, so I am grateful for that.

...and he took his gift and RAN. We're pretty sure he forgot to say thank you. We really need to work on the manners in this department.

Not only did they have a beautiful snow village display, their yard was decorated as well. Graham really liked the reindeer.

Church Christmas Pageant 2007

2007-12-17T21:13:00.000-06:00

On Sunday, we had our annual children's Christmas church pageant. Graham was once again a wiseman. He was a grumpy wiseman, but a wiseman nonetheless. I still don't know why he was grumpy for 50% of the pageant, but he cheered up when it came time to sing. I personally thought it was precious!

Graham and his friend Brett (the red-headed angel in all white) were both on the cranky side during a portion of the program. She kept crying and he kept pouting. Our two families were sitting a pew a part and seriously could not stop laughing.

Okay, things improved once they were standing and singing.

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33

2007-12-10T14:10:00.000-06:00

That's right, I just turned 33. It was kind of a non-event, which was fine by me. However, Aaron did get me exactly what I wanted. A complete one of a kind gift.

When I was 14, I killed my first deer and only buck (I've only killed two deer in my entire life. My hunting career was short-lived.). I killed it in one shot! I have to say I was quite proud of myself (yes, I'm bragging). Earlier in the day, I had gone to the shooting range with my dad, brother and cousin to see if I could even handle a rifle. The first shot hit the target, but nothing to write home about. However, the second shot was a bulls eye which caused my brother, Wade, not to speak to me for a few hours. I have to give Aaron lots of credit on my shooting abilities. He taught me archery at camp, so I guess I retained some skills or something. Annoyed the heck out of my brother that I was able to shoot that well (who was 20 at the time, but acted more like 10 after it happened.). Later that day we went out and I shot the buck. It might as well have been a 10 point b/c I was so proud.

Well, I hadn't seen my antlers in years, and I found them one weekend this fall when I was in Liberty. I brought them back to Waco and told Aaron that I wanted them made into bookends, which is exactly what he did. I love them!

14 year old me w/my small town hair and my deer. Not to be totally gross here, but my brother thought I should be doused in deer blood as some sort of sick initiation into deer hunting. (I told you, he was mad about the bulls eye.) We settled for just little bit of war paint on my face.

The finished product many, many years later. And the wood matches the tables in our living room. Aaron is not one to miss details like that. Love him!!!

Deck the Halls - Gingerbread House Decorating for Kids!

2007-12-09T20:37:00.000-06:00

This weekend was the second annual Junior League of Waco's Deck the Halls gift market. There were various children's events, but we chose just one: the gingerbread house decorating event. We sat with the Abercrombie family (Ali will chair the entire event next year with another friend of mine, Teresa Mellon), and the Larson and Carlson families sat at the table next to us. It was almost like being a Sunday School for the adults and kids.

Graham and Kyndel tried to get the icing out to get started, but the dads had to help. It was kind of thick, but it has to be to get that candy to stick.

Derby & Julie Carlson

Aaron decided to bust out his pocket knife b/c he needed a tool to help make the candy-cane trees. I'm not sure that the League intended for dads to use knives, but Aaron did anyway.

This is my favorite picture. Do you see children anywhere? No. Just Eric and Aaron. Who knows where our kids were at this point. They had had a LOT of sugar, and were probably running around like crazy. Anyway, these two guys were into this project. I think the kids were able to participate a little bit, but the two bigger kids had just as much fun and were just as particular, if not more so, about where candy was to be placed to create architectural details on both houses.

Kyndel and Eric's house.

Graham & Aaron's house.

I'm Back!

2007-12-04T11:09:00.001-06:00

Yes, I took about a month off from blogging, but now I'm back. I know in the past that when I took some time off, there was some sort of "issue" behind that causing my lack in posting. However, this time, there's nothing major to report. I was just busy with life, and I was a slacker about taking pictures. I'll try to do better throughout the holiday season. In the meantime, here's what's been going on in our lives.

Christmas Time!

2007-12-04T10:52:00.000-06:00

On Sunday night, we started the very important task of Christmas decorating. It's still a work in progress, but here's what we've got so far.

Ever since we have lived in Waco (w/the exception of last year b/c we didn't buy a tree), we have always driven out to a cut-your-own tree farm. However, this year, they are closed for improvements, so we went to a tree lot. Truth be told, I liked it better and I don't think G knew the difference.He liked the ones that were just his size. Notice the small football in his hands? Instead of helping us pick a tree, he just threw the ball up and down the aisles. My batteries ran out right after this picture, so I wasn't able to get a picture of G standing with our tree.

Graham is hanging up his very own Shrek ornament that he picked out in Galveston this past summer. Several years ago, we stole an idea from our good friends, Jason & Kelly Morton. They always buy ornaments on their vacations, so that when they pull them out every Christmas, the ornaments would bring back memories. Back before G was born, Aaron and I used our spare time (which is now dedicated to parenting and running a business) to traveling anywhere and everywhere we could go, so we love our ornament collection from our travels. When we went to Galveston this past summer, we stopped by Christmas on the Strand to get our traditional ornament, and we let Graham pick out his own....he chose Shrek and he hung it with pride this Christmas.

Fun at the Feltons

2007-12-04T10:40:00.000-06:00

On Saturday night, the Feltons had a few other Montessori families out to their family ranch for a hot dog and smore's cookout over the fire pit by the lake. It was so laid back and so much fun. All of the kids had a blast! I guess Graham really wanted to watch the Missouri/OU game b/c at one poinit he brought the remote out to the fire pit and asked Mark if he could turn the TV to watch football.

Mark cooking hotdogs. I guess Aaron and James are observing his technique.

S'mores time!

At one point, most of the kids were just sitting around the fire (I think this is when Graham was inside watching the game). The two oldest boys are in first grade, and we all got the biggest kick out of them b/c they were doing "research on daddy long legs". See that Boots has a clipboard and flashlight on his lap. It was hilarious b/c they were very serious about their work.

And of course, the swing was a hit!

First Baylor Basketball Game

2007-12-04T10:25:00.000-06:00

On Friday night, Aaron took Graham to the Baylor vs. Washington State basketball game. (Thanks Pittman family for your tickets!) I had a "Mommy's Night In" with a Poppa Rollo's pizza and a movie. It was his first Baylor basketball game, and he was very unsure about the noise.

The game started at 8:00 p.m., and just as I was settled in with my pizza and movie, I receive a text at 8:15 p.m. that things weren't going well. So, as any semi-over-protective mom would do, I put everything up and get in the car to pick him up from Aaron. Before I could get out of the driveway, Aaron calls to say not to get him yet.

So, I decided to make myself comfortable one more time and just hoped everything would improve. Around 9:00 p.m., Aaron texted me one more time to say everything was great and that they were about to introduce our new head football coach, Art Briles.

When they got home, I was in bed, but Graham was wired! He came in to tell me all about how great the game was (lost in the last minute. ugh). Apparently, he covered his ears for most of the first half, and at one point, his desire for a taste of his Big Red (could have something to do with him being wired, don't you think?) got the best of him, so he put his hands down to take a drink. After that, he decided it wasn't that loud and had a blast.

I forced Aaron to take a camera with him, to document G's first Baylor basketball experience. This is what came back - a picture of him with his hot dog and Big Red.

Thanksgiving 2007

2007-12-04T10:16:00.001-06:00

This year we went to Wimberley to visit Aaron's family, and I have to say, I was a real slacker in the picture taking department. I guess I was too busy eating the yummy food!

It got very chilly on Thanksgiving Day out in the Hill Country, so the kids really wanted some hot chocolate. The mug is almost as big as G's face.

This must have been after most of the family went on a three mile hike (I opted to participate in my family's Thanksgiving tradition instead: NAP). Graham was exhausted and had a major meltdown when he got home. Whitney is like mother hen, so I think she was taking care of him in this picture.

Aaron's family is big into games, so this year, the girls played Boggle. Graham was checking it out. Bless his heart, he has his little Baylor nerf ball and really wanted someone to play football with him.Aaron's mom has some really cool floor puzzles. This one is of the world, and there are little animals that go on each continent. He did the entire thing himself. The only part that was very frustrating to him is that the continents werer not the same colors as the ones on the maps at school.

$850.00

2007-11-12T21:40:00.001-06:00

WMS 17th Annual Auction was this past Friday, and I am sooooooo proud to report that the EC4 (that's Graham's class) auction project went for $850! That was by no means the most that a class project went for ... many went for well over $1000, but it was not the smallest amount either. My goal was $750, and I'm so grateful for the two families that duked it out in a mini-bidding war to raise $850.00.

All of the children were given disposable cameras to take a picture of their "Montessori World." The theme for this year's auction was It's a Small World, so I thought this was a nice tie in. All of the children's photographs were then decoupaged on this toy box donated by Graham's teacher. Her children are older and don't need it any longer. The lid is painted in chalkboard paint. A good friend of mine, Jill, came over and worked her magic on the lid. Below is the project....start to finish. As much as I loved the outcome of the box, I was very happy to get it out of my living room.

Oh, and it wouldn't be a WMS Auction post if I didn't fill you in on how much the reserved parking spots went for this year (see last November's post for 2006's amount): $4100!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's $4100 times TWO! And the sweetest part is that the two families that bought the spaces donated them back to a teacher and the other went to the business manager. And once again, we did not bid on the parking spots. Hair cuts, yes. Parking spots, no.

Julie Chrisman Baby #3

2007-11-12T14:30:00.000-06:00

Last Thursday, Elizabeth Pittman and I took Julie Chrisman out to dinner for a mini-shower to celebrate the upcoming arrival of Chrisman Baby #3. (And where else is there to eat ... why La Fiesta of course! We ate at the Hewitt location and the service was much better. Whew.) We can't wait to meet the little man in late November/early December...whenever he decides to arrival.

Baylor Homecoming 2007

2007-11-05T16:30:00.000-06:00

The festivities started on Friday night. Did we attend Baylor sactioned events like the bonfire or Pigskin? Uh, no, not exactly. Aaron and I did a something a little more reminiscent of our college years: a ROBERT EARL KEEN concert! Now, that's what I call Homecoming. We went with our good friends and fellow Baylor graduates (and Theta pledge sister), Alison and Mark Havens. They came up from Austin. It was Mark's birthday, so he was all over going to Robert Earl to celebrate.

First stop was La Fiesta in Hewitt. What an experience! Just call Alison the "Queen of Comp" because our meal was comped. It was a nightmare in the service department. I could write a lengthy commentary on it, but I won't bore you. But next time you go, make sure they give you fajita meat when they deliver the fixins' and once the meat finally arrives 20 minutes later after the fixins' be sure to request tortillas b/c apparently those do not come standard with fajitas anymore. No lie by the time the meat got there, Alison and Mark had eaten all of their cheese and pico! And since Alison has lots of experience in food service (she was, afterall, the night manager of the Hewitt DQ back in high school), she talked to the manager about the many issues of the night.

Then it was off to Hog Creek Ice House for a little REK.

Alison is enjoying the tunes of Ryan James all by her lonesome a few feet from the stage. We all eventually moved up and joined her.

And there's the man...Robert Earl! (I didn't bring my camera w/zoom, so I didn't get a good shot of his sweet purple rockabilly shirt, blazer, cowboy hat and sunglasses. Oh and he had a medallion around his neck. We're not too sure about his new look.)

On Saturday, we made ourselves get up and go to the parade. It was technically my ten year reunion, so we met several of my pledge sisters, including Alison Havens and her family, at the Theta breakfast at the Fort House.

Caroline & Mary Kate Havens and Graham really enjoyed the parade.

It was hilarious to listen to Graham and Caroline discuss the floats with one another. They would point out what they liked, what they didn't like, etc. Really, conversations between four year olds are the best.

They shared their loot (aka candy).

Here are a few of my pledge sisters. Unfortunately, not everyone was in one place at one time, so you'll only get a portion of the girls in each of the group shots. (l-r: me, Amy King Shellenberger, Kelly Paxton Kastnelson, Danna Davidson, Tammy Russell and Amy Thompson)

Before we move on to pics from the pitiful game, it might be a good time to note that one of the Baylor Jibbitz was lost forever at the Homecoming parade. I have a sneaking suspicion that some other Baylor fan that knows what a pain it is to get the Baylor Jibbitz, found a way to snatch it right off of G's shoes without his knowledge.

Here's the one pic from the game. Can't you just see the hope in their eyes?

Julie Johnson Stanford and Ainsley at La Fiesta (this time we were at the original location on Franklin and much better service. Thank goodness!)

Here's another group shot, that once again, doesn't include everyone that showed up for Homecoming festivities. (front row l-r: me, Danna, Carol Thailing Dwyer, Amy; back row l-r: Kelly, Tammy, Julie)I decided that Aaron and I need a pic at La Fiesta. We went there three times last week. Once for a fundraiser for WMS, then with the Havens, and then again with the rest of the gang. That's a lot of La Fiesta in one week.

Happy Halloween 2007!

2007-11-02T07:58:00.000-05:00

I figured that I better get these posted before the Homecoming festivities begin (today!).

Instead of traditional trick or treating, we did what I think everyone I know did, we went to "Trunk or Treat" at our church. First we had our regular Wednesday night dinner, then our organist performed a spooky organ concert. She called herself the "Witch on the Bench." Here she is right before she began.

Next, it was out to the parking lot to hit all of the "trunks" for some good treats. Graham really seemed to like it, and we didn't have to fight the traffic in our own neighborhood. Maybe next year, we'll go back to the traditional form of trick or treating since where we live is OUT OF CONTROL on Halloween and it's definitely an "experience."
Some people went all out. (not the Braunsteins...but I don't think the kids noticed)

Can you say "Herman Munster?"

a view from the back. I love the witch.

Graham hit up his dad for candy more than once.

Graham and Hudson hanging out after a tiring night of asking for candy.

Graham and his friend, Aidon. He lives just down the street. Crazy thing is that his mom went to camp with Aaron and me many years ago. We had not seen her in years and then she moved to Waco and just a few houses down from us. It's been great b/c Aidon and Graham play so well together.

The Braunstein Family: the pirate, the social butterfly and the red Power Ranger.

Church Video #2

2007-10-31T12:02:00.000-05:00

Here's the second song.

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Singing at Church

2007-10-31T08:23:00.000-05:00

On Sunday, Graham sang in the children's choir at church. I can't even begin to tell you how it makes me smile to see him up there. I could just watch the videos all day long. Enjoy! (By the way, I'm having issues getting them both to post b/c they're such large files, so here's one of two. Hopefully I can post the other one later.)

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Relay for Life 2007!

2007-10-30T21:48:00.000-05:00

On Saturday night, I headed out to the 10th annual American Cancer Society Relay for Life. It is such a moving event, and if you've never attended one, I highly encourage you to check out the one in your area. You won't regret being a part of something so wonderful.

I was on the silent auction committee, so I left Graham at home with Aaron. Normally, Aaron and I would take him up there b/c he thinks it's a lot of fun and he's been going to Relay since he was about 10 weeks old. Unfortunately, Aaron did not need to be outside with his cold, so it was just me.

The woman waving is Debbie Williams. I met her when I first moved to Waco 5 years ago b/c she works in the HR department at Baylor, and her husband is in the same department at Allergan where Aaron worked. The Williams were our first friends in Waco. Debbie is a two-time survivor and currently the Chairman of the Board for the local ACS board. She's truly, truly one of the most inspirational people I've ever had the honor of being friends with. She is walking the survivor's lap.

Debbie, Wally and their son, Kyle, walking the second lap of the relay which includes the family members and caregivers alongside their loved one/survivor.

The Baylor HR and Compensation & Benefits offices joined forces to create a team for the Relay. Since I'm an honorary member of the HR department these days, I hung out with them in their cozy tent until it was my shift to work. This is Debbie C. and Angela getting ready to spend a long night at the track.

Oh by the way, the theme of Relay was Dancing through the Decades and their team theme was "Cancer A Go Go" hence the outfits (and ones you'll see below.).

The Comp & Benefits crew: Beverly and Maggin.

Debbie C. & Marcia

Debbie W. & Debbie C.

Lisa & Angela

This is how I left the HR team at around midnight.....playing scrabble and out of their outfits. Hmm, I wonder who was walking while they were playing?

Fall Fun with Church Friends

2007-10-30T21:08:00.001-05:00

This past Saturday, our Sunday School class and our families, headed out to West to visit the Kaska Family Farm. Poor Aaron was at home sick with a nasty cold, so Graham and I met up with everyone and had a great time. It was pretty much the same group who went to the fair together a few weeks ago.

First, our group of 20 invaded a nice family restaurant for breakfast. I'm not sure they knew what to do with us "out of towners", but we're pretty confident that we at least doubled their typcial Saturday morning revenue. This is Brett, Haley and Derby toasting to a Happy Fall!

At the farm with our fearless Sunday School teacher/leader, Jeremy on the hay.

Graham really enjoyed this little cow train.

This was the hay maze for the little kids. Graham thought it was way more fun to jump from bale to bale. I really like this mid-air shot.

What would a farm be without an authentic John Deere tractor? (Actually, they used a "red" tractor to pull the cow train...which is a bit disturbing when you grew up in a 100% JD family.)

There are times when Graham reminds me so much of my brother, Wade, when he was a little boy. Between climbing into an exhibit at the Dr Pepper museum (Wade liked to set off alarms at the wax museum), breaking windows (Wade broke enough to pay for most of his college education), and attempting to push every button that catches his eye, including one on an escalator at the Austin Convention Center (Wade STOPPED an escalator at a nice department store in Houston), it's not surprising that he pushed every button on this tractor and pulled every lever. It really was like looking at a miniture version of my big brother b/c there is no doubt in my mind that even today, Wade would have climbed on that tractor and played with everything. The only difference is that he knows exactly what each button/lever does.

The finale...a hayride!

Pumpkin Decorating 2007

2007-10-30T21:02:00.001-05:00

"Jack" has come to live with us again this year. If you happened to have read the blog last October, you met "Jack". I'm telling you, this is the best way to carve a pumpkin! And Graham loves that he gets to use his hammer. (Poor kid doesn't even know what real pumpkin carving is. Maybe we'll introduce him to the art of hollowing out a pumpkin next year. Soooo gross!)