Great Wolf Lodge

Quentin received a gift certificate to a travel agency from his work shortly after he started.  Since I was pregnant, neither of us wanted to use any vacation time so we could save it for the baby so we decided to just do a weekend getaway at Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City.  It's a little indoor waterpark and we knew Brady would love it! We were right, although that may be a bit of an understatement.  We went to play right after we got there and he did not want to leave to go to bed (which isn't a huge shock since he fights bedtime anyway).  Then we went back right after breakfast in the morning and stayed until about 4:30.  It was a long day for us, but I think Brady could have stayed forever.  There were really only two slides he could go down because they won't let you hold him on your lap to go down the bigger ones, but he did it all by himself and loved every minute.  He did not love the giant bucket that dumped every few minutes and made a huge sound, so we pretty much just hung out in the kiddie part, which worked for me since I was pregnant and not allowed to ride the other slides anyway.

 This arcade was right next to the waterpark and we promised Brady we could go, so after we finished with the water we changed clothes and stopped in here for some fun.  Brady played a few games and got enough tickets to pick some cheapo prizes that he was excited about.  His favorite was riding these little "rides" though.

Afterwards we ate at Arthur Bryant's and headed home.  I thought Brady would surely fall asleep on the way home since we swam right through nap, but boy was I wrong.  He was so wound up! But it was a fun little trip (made even more fun by the fact we really only had to pay for gas, thanks to the generosity of the docs at Missouri Vein Care!)

Gingerbread Houses

It's been a Moore family tradition to do "gingerbread" houses at Christmas since I was itty bitty.  Mom makes the houses from graham crackers and we put on all the candy we want :)  This year we joined up with our friends the Mills for even more fun :)  It was the same night as the Christmas Devotional, so we decorated our houses and watched the devotional together.  And ate lots of candy and treats.

 Here is a picture of everyone with their finished product.  Everyone's turned out pretty good.  Even Jade and her all orange house :)

 You may be sad to know that Jordan's dog got to this masterpiece a short time later... :(

It was so much fun to catch up with the Mills family.  They have been my second family for as long as I can remember and we definitely need to do stuff like this more often!

Breakfast with Santa

Every year Rock Bridge puts on Breakfast with Santa.  They have activities and crafts for the kids and, of course, Santa comes for a visit.  I'm glad we decided to go this year since we never made it to Bass Pro to visit Santa.  Brady seemed to have a good time and he ran into a few of his daycare buddies while we were there.  He got a reindeer painted on his face and did a great job of holding really still.

He did a few crafts and a little bowling game too and then we stopped by to see Santa on our way out.  When we were in line we asked Brady what he was going to ask Santa for and he said "presents."  Easy enough huh? Well unfortunately, Brady was so excited to see Santa that he completely wiped out on his run up there.  So he was too embarrassed to actually talk to Santa.  Or who knows, he may have been too shy anyway.  It was a fun morning and I'm not sure it gets much cute than this boy!

23 Weeks

Well, I realized that I never even made our big announcement on here.  Baby Bell #2 will be making her debut in March (or possibly April since her due date is March 26).  And to prove to posterity that I did indeed carry another child (who has already gotten less attention than the first), I took my first pregnancy picture.  I can't promise there will be a ton more, but hopefully I will remember to take a few more.  This is actually from 4 weeks ago and I am just now getting it up.  Oh well, better late than never right?

Halloween

Halloween started off the weekend before with the trunk or treat at church.  Mom and Dad went as s'mores.  Aren't they cute?

 Grandma S'moore and Giraffe Brady (yep, the costume is a little small.  Please ignore the pants hanging out the bottom).

 Brady enjoyed going around getting candy this year and actually understood the concept this time.  But his favorite part was handing out candy to the kids with Grandpa.  I guess it's better to give than receive huh?

 The night before Halloween we carved a pumpkin.  It was kind of rushed so not really a noteworthy carving, but Brady had fun with it anyway.  He was excited to light the candle.

 Here he is with the finished product.  Look at that cute little smile :)

 On actual Halloween we went to Grandma's house for pizza and then went trick or treating.  We just went up and down their street.  Brady did really well saying "trick or treat" and then he would say "thank you, next house!"  It was pretty cute.  He also made Quentin carry him "like a baby giraffe."  And once again, his favorite part was passing candy out to the kids.  Happy Halloween!

Bowling

About a month ago we finally used our bowling gift certificate that we got for Christmas last year.  I wasn't sure how it would go with Brady since he is pretty unpredictable, but he did great.  At first he was scared because he said it was too loud, but he warmed up quickly.

 We let him roll the ball on his own the first few times.  After a couple weeks, the ball finally made it to the pins (yes, slight exaggeration.  But only slightly).  Then we found this little ramp thing that worked a lot better.  You just set the ball at the top and he can push it down.  And then it actually has enough force to knock down the pins by the time it gets there :)

Isn't that the cutest little bowler you ever saw?  I would also like to point out that I won.  Thank goodness we had the bumpers up!

"Camping"

Quentin has been promising Brady for a while that they could camp in a tent in the backyard if he practiced staying quiet at night.  This trick worked pretty well for a while, and Brady was beyond excited at the idea of camping.  So after Quentin took his vascular registry (and passed...yay Quentin!!) he decided it was time to fulfill his promise.  We borrowed a tent from Lori and set it up while the burgers were on the grill.

 Excuse the blurry picture.  But this is what the boys did to pass the time...watch a movie on the ipad.  Ahhhh...the great outdoors :)  We did do s'mores (well, on the grill that is).

 Here they are in their pajamas and ready for bed.  Apparently it was a long process getting to sleep because the bugs made noises that Brady didn't like, which is no shock to anyone who knows Brady's fear and disdain for bugs.  Once they got to sleep, they lasted the whole night.  I was pretty shocked because I thought for sure they would only be out there for an hour or two.  They sure are happy campers...and cute campers too!