Chattanooga Weekend Getaway

I decided I wanted to take Brayden somewhere before the baby comes to enjoy some time with just him before I'm consumed with all things newborn and don't have as much time for him. I knew I wouldn't want to take any time off work because I'm saving it up for maternity leave so I knew a weekend trip would be all we could do. I also knew I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time driving so I limited our choices to Chattanooga or Atlanta. In the end, Chattanooga was the winner.

We left Friday afternoon after I got off work, just the 3 of us. It seriously was such a great trip. We did all the sightseeing, eating, and swimming we could squeeze into 2 days. Our only negative of the trip was the weather was a little dreary. However, it didn't stop us from having fun!

On Saturday, we did the aquarium and the Chattanooga Ducks. Brayden has been to the aquarium before, but he still loved it. We actually got to see a diver in the biggest tank exhibit and it was awesome!

Diver in the background!

If you've never done the Chattanooga Ducks before, I highly recommend it! I think it was the favorite for everyone. It's an old military vehicle called a DUKW and it can ride on land and in water. We started off by driving through the streets of Chattanooga and then went down a ramp into the Tennessee River and rode in the river for a little while. Brayden even got to drive it in the river for a bit. It was so cool!

We did a little swimming when we got back to the hotel, and honestly, Brayden would have been happy if that's all we had done.

We toured Ruby Falls Sunday morning. It was very cool and even though I'd been before, that waterfall still took my breath away.

 

 

We were supposed to do Rock City after lunch, but it was still pretty rainy outside and the walking at Ruby Falls had just about done Brayden and I in so we decided to skip it and do it next time. We headed for the Tennessee Valley Railroad for a train ride instead!

This trip was everything I hoped it would be and more. Brayden was so well behaved the entire time, which meant I got to spend every second just enjoying him and doing everything he wanted to. I sure will miss all this time I've had with just him, but I am more than ready to welcome another sweet little boy into my life and heart who will be just as special!

December Happenings

Since I'm so behind on blogging, I'm just going to hit the highlights of December.

*Brayden was in his Christmas program at school and did a great job! He waved and blew us kisses pretty much the entire time he was on stage. :) But he also performed his songs like he was supposed to.

*We went on a trolley ride in Montgomery to see Christmas lights with his Hutton cousins. My mom went too and it was so much fun!

 

*We took Brayden to his first movie at the theater. I was a little worried about he would do. I even prepared Tyler to be ready to leave during the movie. But he did great! He loved it and was so fascinated by the huge screen. I have a feeling he will be requesting to go to the movies pretty often now.  



We've had such a great month. I'll post about Christmas soon!

Thanksgiving 2013

So, for the 3 people that read this blog on a regular basis, you probably think I've decided to give it up again. Not quite, I've just not been in the mood to blog for some reason. Life is busy, I'm exhausted, and this here blog is the last thing on my priority list. But, since I do this for memory keeping purposes, I'm taking you back to Thanksgiving. :)

Thursday
On the actual day of Thanksgiving, we got together at my mom's house for lunch. I know this may shock you, but I have NO pictures from that day. None! I just didn't think about it. We had a great lunch and it was so nice to be able to enjoy the day with my small family without having to worry about heading off to the next place. I'm so very thankful for my family and all they do for me.

Friday
Friday was the Hutton Thanksgiving, which is always lots of fun. Brayden loves spending time with his cousins and this time was no different. They played and played and played. I got to spend time with sweet Ella and even got some picture time with the big kids!

 Asher made sure to test out Ella's bumbo seat to make sure it was safe :)

 

Saturday
We headed to the tree farm Saturday to cut down our tree. We picked out a good one and Brayden and Daddy cut it down.

We took it home and decorated it. This was the first year Brayden really cared about decorating the tree. He was very interested in which ornaments were "his" and loved looking at all of them.

Sunday
Sunday night Brayden was in a Christmas program at church. They all wore their pajamas and sang a few songs and then listened to the Christmas story. I took all of those pictures on Tyler's phone so I had to steal some from Facebook (thanks Summer!). Other than the fact that he kept putting his hands down his pants, it was cute to watch and I was pretty proud. :)

We had such a great Thanksgiving weekend and I am so thankful for all the wonderful people in my life. God has truly blessed us beyond measure!

Weekend Fun!

I know I say this every Monday, but we seriously had the best weekend ever! The weather was beautiful and we did so many fun things!

Friday
Friday night we went to Brooke's mother-in-law's house for postponed Halloween trick or treating. She loves all things Halloween and puts on quite a shindig every year. We normally don't get to go since we go to the fall festival at church, but since she had it Friday night we got to go. The only memorable thing to report from that evening is the fact that my child went up and shook a candle holder that was lining the driveway and tons of wax fell down into his hair! I was seriously trying to get candle wax out of his hair all weekend. By the way, that is not an easy feat. Especially when the child screams bloody murder because the wax is on his scalp.

Even though it wasn't our plan, we actually ended up playing tourist in Birmingham this weekend.
Saturday
Saturday Tyler had to work so Mom and I got together and took Brayden to eat lunch and to Aldridge Gardens. It was so pretty! We walked the trail around the lake and just enjoyed taking our time and enjoying the scenery.

 

And thanks to Mom for her pose in the picture above because then we got the next awesome picture of Brayden.

Sunday
Sunday after church, Tyler wanted to do something fun since he worked Saturday. We invited Mom along and headed towards Birmingham. Our original plan was to pick something up and have a picnic at a park. Tyler vetoed that idea though because he just doesn't understand why anyone would want to eat outside, even on a patio or porch. We ended up eating lunch at the same place we ate Saturday (what can I say, I'm a creature of habit). We had decided to go to Moss Rock at the Preserve, but found out they were having a huge art festival so we skipped it. We ended up at Vulcan Park and I'm so glad we did! Brayden loved it! He asked if we could go back to "Vultan" tomorrow. Vulcan is a huge statue in Birmingham that represents our iron history. Even though I'm not much of a museum or history person, I really enjoyed the museum here. I liked learning about the history of Birmingham since I've lived right south of it all my life.

When we went up to the observation deck, the lady taking our tickets said it was good until 10:00 that night and I got a wild hair and mentioned that it would be so fun to come back at night when all the lights of Birmingham were on. I convinced my travel partners to do it when I said since they time had changed, it would be getting dark really early anyway. Ha, I don't really think they needed convincing.

To pass the time, we decided to go to the airport and park along the road beside the runways and watch the planes land and take off. We got there and parked and there were 2 planes sitting at the end of the runway and we could tell they were waiting on the all clear to take off.

Well, we sat there for about 30 minutes and NOTHING happened. We couldn't figure it out. Finally I decided to go to the airport's website and see if any planes were scheduled to land or take off in the next few minutes. When I pulled up the schedule, it said that 3 planes that should have landed while we were there had been diverted. Well, we knew something had to be going on. Sure enough, I pulled up the Birmingham News website and there was a security breach, later learning it was a bomb threat, and the entire airport had been evacuated and planes had been grounded. Seriously!! What are the odds on the one day we go to do that, it would have a bomb threat going on! Needless to say, we had one disappointed little boy but we told him we'd bring him back.

We drove around and looked at the new Regions Park (where the Birmingham Barons play) and drove through this cool tunnel!

By that point, it was dusk so we headed back to Vulcan. Boy was it worth it! Birmingham at night is so beautiful! I'm so glad we stuck around to see it.

And even though this picture is horrible, here is our sweet family!

I mean, seriously, Brayden looks deranged!

We had such a good time, even though we missed our normal traveling cohorts. Brooke & Bent just stayed around the house, so I didn't get to see them the entire weekend! :(

I hope you had a great weekend as well!

 

Birthday Parties & the Pumpkin Patch!

We seriously had the best weekend we've had in a long time. Tyler spent pretty much the entire weekend with us except for Friday night when he was working and that's pretty rare. Life is so much easier when he tags along because he carries Brayden and buckles him in his carseat and I enjoy that so much!

Friday night we went to Aubrey's 2nd birthday party and had so much fun.

Bentley is obssessed with babies. She always points them out when she sees one in public and she's just so attracted to them. She became enamored with Adelaide toward the end of the party and it was so funny watching it.

Saturday morning we went to Nate's birthday party. Nate is one of Brayden's best friends and I love watching them interact. It was such a cool party! It was a race car theme and Brayden got to get a tattoo, color a wooden racecar, race cars down a ramp, jump in a "race bounce" and so many other fun things. I wish I had gotten a picture of Nate and Brayden, but I didn't.

We finally got his Halloween costume that afternoon and I love it! He looks SO adorable in it and I can't wait for him to wear it. 

Sunday after church, we headed for the pumpkin patch! It was packed! I have never seen so many people, but we still had a great time. Brayden jumped in the cotton bounce, took a gander at the farm animals, picked some cotton, and climbed the hay mountain.

After that, we jumped on the hayride to head out to the pumpkin patch. (Not really, we waited in line for about an hour)

Poor Bent was not in a good mood that day. She wasn't feeling well and was pretty much done with the pumpkin patch after about 5 minutes of being there.

We got out to the patch and found our pumpkins and then waited another hour to ride the hayride back.

On our way out we stopped and did the corn maze and took a family pic. It was a gorgeous day and even though it was packed, we had the best time!

Of course, when we got home we carved our pumpkins. I actually carved mine all by myself this year and I was so proud! Mine is the Boo one. :)