What are you thankful for?

I could make a list much longer than anyone would want to read about all the things I am thinkful for this year, but instead, let me focus on one something...

Friendship! I truly have some of the best friends anyone could ask for.

Ginger Nix is one of those people. She and I have been BFFs since we were 18 and have stayed thick and theives even though we live many miles away from each other. A few weeks ago, she and her family, Jeff (aka G-E-F-F) and their sweet baby Judah came to visit my parents house in Georgia and we had a great time, especially watching our boys start to "play" together. Here are just a few pics from the trip.

the mamas and our little guys

I love the below series of pictures.

Boys will be boys!


I love this family shot since we got all three of us smiling! yea!
(All pictures were taken at Barnsley Gardens)

"Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good;

His love endures forever."

1 Chronicles 16:34

Ladies Man

Braylen has some of the sweetest friends. One of them is this precious little girl named Ella. Ella was born 9 weeks before Braylen and her mom, Emily, and I are wonderful friends. We had a girls night a couple weeks ago at our apartment and Brannon and Wes (Ella's dad) were out of town so they joined the fun.

Braylen should have been in bed by this point but, as always, he would not sleep with all of the action. Braylen was really pretty mellow, but Ella was ready to play. She was lovin' her some Braylen!

The pictures below pretty much tell how their "playtime" went...

Emily pulling Ella back...

Emily stopping Ella from pulling Braylen's hair
Ella squealing with delight!
Braylen looking at me like "what do I do mom?"

Ella: "Hey Braylen, where are you going?!?"

This little guy can only handle so much love!

Play time over.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!

(about a month late!)

Braylen and three little pumpkins!
Before the girls went trick or treating we were able to get a few pics of the kids together. As for getting them all to look at the camera is another thing...

At the Preschool we have "Trunk or Treat" and all the teacher dress up with the children. I was a fairy (or a butterfly)! Braylen was a cute baby in cute "my first Halloween pjs" that had bats on the feet. ;-)

Every Friday, Children's Day Out (CDO) is closed, so we have childcare for the teacher's children who are not yet in Preschool. This year it is just Braylen and Owen. Owen is the sweetest two year old and he just loves "Baby Bayben." They had a good time playing that day with Tish, their teacher and jumping in the moonwalk.

Owen was Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales. Braylen loves just watching Owen play and play!

Baptism

Baptism Day

Benjamin Braylen Traywick

October 31, 2010

Auburn United Methodist Church

Dr. George Mathison and Braylen

Braylen and Cela Grace. I had to be quick with the camera because just as we would sit Cela back she would lean forward trying to get to her crawling position. That little girl is fast!

Poppy, Grammie and the girls

Aunt Jess and Braylen after a he was changed out of his "dress," as Brannon kept calling it. I insisted it was a gown, but Brannon didn't seem to think there was a difference!


On the left; Uncle Kevin, Aunt Mary, Collier and Suzie.
On the right; O and Meme

Collier and Suzie with Braylen

Oh Braylen...What a grand responsibility we have. God has given us such a special gift, but with that gift comes the responsibility to raise you to be a strong Christian man. Our main prayer for you is that you will follows God's greatest commandment: to love Him and love others. At some point Braylen you will choose to make a commitment to Christ that is your own, but for now, your Dad and I have made that commitment for you. We promise to do our best little one. We love you dearly and always will.

Oops! I forgot to mention....

...while at the beach, Braylen started sitting up by himself!
I was so surprised! But I was even more exited that I had my camera right beside me so I could catch the moment!
Just look at that big boy!

Fun With Friends!

Meet Sawyer and Judah! Two of Braylen's BFF's!
Sawyer is a sweet little 2 year old who has recently learned to tell his mommy "no!" to most anything, making his mommy a little crazy at times, but he really is super cute and a very sweet little guy! It had been a few months since I had seen Sawyer so it was great to see how much he has changed and how verbal he has become!

Judah is an adorable six and a half month old. (in these pictures, taken in early October) He was born in Ethopia in March and wecolmed with love to his Mommy and Daddy in July. (some of you may remember me blogging about his story in prior months) It was such a joy to be able to meet Judah for the first time! Judah was the answer to so many prayers and a true gift from God. These Alabama boys (ROLL TIDE) were all meeting each other for the first time and really taking the time to check each other out!

Picture below went something like this...

Braylen: "Judah, you really flew on a plane for 16 hours? That is crazy dude!"

Judah: "Seriously man... it was a crazy ride! You'll have to try it some time. Lets plan on Spring Break 2029, we'll go someplace fun, but sshhhh lets don't tell our moms." Sawyer was being super sweet to show Braylen where all the animals were on his new farm puzzle.

okay, you have to admit... that is just sweet!

I guess I should introduce you to the moms of these great little guys. Ginger and Judah are on the left and live in the Chapel Hill area. Brooke and Sawyer live in Birmingham. We all met in college and have stayed such wonderful friends ever since. These girls are awesome and I love them dearly! What fun it is now to have little boys that can hopefully grow up to be dear friends as well.

We don't get together nearly as often as we would like, but we will take what we can get! This get together was in the 'Caug (aka Sylacauga, AL) at KK's house. (Ginger's mom) Thanks for hosting us KK and for the wonderful lunch!

Beach Baby- Blue Mountain Beach, FL

HAPPY FALL Y'ALL!
I can't believe its been a month since we went to the beach, but October has flown by and we are now seeing true signs of fall as the weather is actually a little cooler around here! ;-)

But going back through these pictures makes me want to go back to the beach and the perfect beach weather. It was just warm enough for the kids to swim, but not so warm that you really got hot. It was awesome! Braylen enjoyed his time with his cousins and the sand didn't seem to bother his chubby little toes!

Hunk of love! Check out those legs!

Also at the beach were (Left to right) Emma, Caroline (holding Braylen) Jack, Camille (holding Cela)
Jack and Emma are Caroline, Camille and Cela's other cousins. The big kids loved playing on the beach and chasing the birds!

Early in the week we celebrated Caroline and Camille's 3rd birthday. (wine glass does not belong to them!) Happy birthday girlies!

Cute beach outfit (belonging to cousin Collier!) that we wanted to get a fun family picture in, but Braylen had a rash around his eye that didn't make for good picture taking. But I liked this picture because the swollen red eye is on the other side! It really looked like he got in a bar fight! Poor kid!

Just chillin'! All laid back in the pool!!

The hat was a little too small and sat on his head like a top hat. ha!

Still to come...

~Fun With Friends

~Halloween

~Baptism

Whenever I can actually get this sweet baby to sleep a little, I'll blog some more!

Happy Monday everyone!

computers...

Computers... can't live with out 'em, but my oh my they can make you crazy when they don't want to work! Since our laptop was freaking out for a little bit I have not had time to upload pictures and update the blog. (No it has not been broken for a month, but like usual I have gotten behind and the broken computer just helped me get further behind!)
So here we go...

Since we are in the throws of football season I had to include a couple cute pics of Braylen in his Auburn and Alabama gear. This poor child... Brannon and I are going to really confuse him.
Due to the very warm Saturdays, Braylen and I have not made it to a tailgate yet, but hopefully we will soon. I know Brannon wants to show off this little guy!


Daddy heading to a game...WAR EAGLE!

ROLL TIDE! (thank you Ms. Mary Jane for my Alabama jon-jon)

September has brought another big step... REAL FOOD! So far so good. I have been making Braylen's food and for the most part he seems to be enjoying it. Below you can see Braylen enjoying squash. )his first food) I think that could be one of his favorites. But as my friend Emily pointed out, I did eat squash almost every other week while I was pregnant with him!

Other foods he has enjoyed... sweet potato's, carrots (whole carrots, not baby carrots. He was not a fan of baby carrots) green beans, sweet peas, bananas, mango's, apple sauce and corn.

This picture was just too cute! We realized one night earlier in September that we had not taken any fun bath pics in a while, so we thought we better try and lucky for us we caught that sweet smile on camera. (and his foot covering all the right parts!)

I have much more to blog about this week. Meme is here while Brannon is working in Birmingham for the week so I hope to catch up on a few of these fun things.

I hope to have our beach pictures up in a couple days!

More to come soon! We love you Braylen!

Sweet, Sweet Smiles!

I knew the day would come that Preschool would start again, but I was in no hurry for it to get here. I really do love my job, but I also enjoy my time at home with this sweet baby boy. Although I have been going into the office a few days a week for almost a month now, I feel like I have officially started back since Preschool began yesterday. It was good day with lots of smiles, but our two year olds will start tomorrow so that can always be a little more tearful! ;-(

With my start back to work, Braylen has been going to CDO and he has done very well. But since yesterday was the Preschool's first day of school, I treated yesterday like his first day of school too and had to get a first day of school picture. I actually caught that precious, precious smile on camera. It is not one of his full blown open mouth grins, but it is a sweet, sweet smile.

Another sweet, sweet smile is that of Braylen's older cousin (only by 10 weeks) sweet Cela Grace. She is a wonderful baby. So happy, easy and laid back. Not to mention, a great sleeper! This is a picture from her baptism three weeks ago. We love you Cela!

Baby Bunny

Since we didn't know the sex of our baby before he was born, our sweet niece Suzie gave the baby the nickname of "Bunny." Not very gender neutral, but none the less we received a few bunny gifts, one of which you can see here. This is his "bunsie" instead of a onesie. (gift from Aunt Ginger) He has a cute little cotton tale, which of course I think is just so cute. I'm not sure how much longer Brannon will let me dress his son in this one!

Braylen is really starting to play with his toys a little more. Below is a pictures of his "bug" that has a lot of bright colors and the wings make a fun crinkle sound.

The bumbo seat seems to entertain Braylen pretty well (for at least a few minutes), but he has already figured out how to pull the toy off the tray and put it in his mouth.

Braylen started "school" last week. (Children's Day Out (CDO) at the church) I have been going back to work to get ready for Preschool and fall church activities, so he has been making new friends in Ms. Selena's class. I think he is doing pretty well and his teachers are figuring him out. Mainly that he doesn't like to take a morning nap and heaven forbid you act like you are going to try and get him to sleep. He can really let you know how he feels about that! Other than that I think he likes all the action, and has been coming home and taking a good nap in the afternoons.

Life is good. We have a sweet little boy. A true blessing to me and his dad.