Chugga Chugga Two Two! and also Merry Christmas ;)

We had so much fun celebrating Christmas this year. Brooks was more into the whole thing and he got really excited over his big present...

Train table of course!

It actually belonged to cousin Chase but he has outgrown it so we were happy to adopt it!

He also got this giant Thomas train tunnel which I really bought for his birthday party but they had a lot of fun with it.

I did a dry run of his birthday cake...

Which the boys enjoyed!

We brought the train table home where it took up residence in the playroom.

He also got "tub trains"

and a warm day in between christmas and new years to play at the beach!

I did a little amateur photo shoot trying to capture a good pic of those curls!

Cruisin around the hood with his buddy Walker

We ended up waiting until Jan. 9th to have his birthday party but it was so much fun!

Nana was a good sport and played trains the whole time she was here. Brooks loved it!

The theme for his party this year was "Chugga Chugga Two Two!"

Food table with a food train

Drinks

2nd cake attempt...much better!

Painting little wooden trains to take home.

Months train...

Nana's fabulous ballon decor!

Train tent--big hit at the party! We were going to do a bounce house but this was just as entertaining.

playing with tyler and calvin

Charlotte was a good sport about being the only girl!

Calvin, Carter, and Tyler

Tongue out concentration level

Lilly made it to the party for a few minutes!

Nate and baby Lucas

Tunnel fun!

Bags to take home the trains they painted.

Cake time!

Baby Bennett

Stafford

Attempt at a "group photo"--not a possibility with toddlers

Fam pic, me 8 months pregnant! 

Everyone had fun painting trains, playing trains, eating cupcakes! Only problem with the whole party is the icing turned all the kids diapers bright green the next day.  I had every intention of making the cupcakes and frosting from scratch and had my recipes all pinterested and ready to go but then the day before the party I decided to order them from Publix because-pregnant.  Oops!!

Happy Birthday little buddy! We love you!!

23 Months!

We started off with Thanksgiving which was so much fun...

We managed to squeeze in enough seats for everyone!

We also had great weather during Thanksgiving week and Todd's dad stayed for a few days after so we went on the boat a lot and B loved it!

They got some fishing poles and B also got his birthday present early from Uncle Chad and Aunt Maria...huge hit!

He is now the proud owner of a Mercedes Benz.  

We got his class picture back from school and he can name every kid in his class!

Lots of playtime outside.

New basketball goal...

And we quickly moved on to Christmas!

I attempted several times to get a pic with hopes of making a Christmas card happen but no such luck and time ran out.

I have been playing around with Mary Kay's embroidery machine and this was our first appliqué project! A christmas train shirt of course. I hope to make a lot more stuff!

Went to the class christmas party...

and we had our neighbor friend who lives down the street over to decorate cookies. Brooks loved it! 

Todd had a terrible month at work and was almost never home before midnight this whole month. He also worked every sat and sun so we had a hard time finding time to go see Santa...BUT we finally made it one night and as you can see it didn't go so well.  Maybe next year he will be into Santa!

"my draw" 

Attempted SEVERAL times to get a shot for a christmas card but ran out of time.  This would have been it though!

We went to the festival of lights on James Island one night. Brooks LOVED it! They had a merry-go-round that he was really into and this year they added a little train that drove you around to look at the lights. We had to wait like an hour and fifteen minutes to ride it but it was so worth it because he loved it so much.  

Decorating presents for grandmas. 

I had to take this pic because I dressed him in this outfit one day and I could not get over how much he looked like a grown up! 

We went down to grannys for christmas at the end of the month. This was our best attempt at a fam photo before the christmas eve service. If you can't tell I was getting a lot of mileage out of the jon-jon because this is probably our last year for them :(.

snapped a quick pic after church...B was the opposite of well behaved during church. He doesn't really understand being "quiet" yet and we ended up just running around in the lobby with him.

Opening some presents Christmas eve! 

These are more pics from the festival of lights...I added these from Todd's phone and I don't know how to move them around.

Riding the carousel!

on the TRAIN!

opening presents

The whole gang on Christmas eve!