Monday, January 12, 2015

Christmas 2014 and Gil's First Trip to Mississippi!

AKA, a post in which I put up a million pictures...


Well we are back from down South.  

Actually, we have been back for a week and a half now, but we have been unpacking, playing with new toys, and dealing with a baby sleep regression.  So I am just now getting around to posting these pictures and blogging about Christmas!


This is Jackie boy in the State College airport.  Can you tell that this little boy is so excited to go home to Mississippi?

Our flight was overbooked (as were all of the flights out of State College for that week!), so we almost got bumped.  They were going to taxi us to Harrisburg (1 1/2 away) early the next morning.  Um, do you want to spend 1 1/2 in a taxi with my kids at 3 a.m.?  Yeah, me neither!  Also, we were going to be the ones getting bumped because we were "the family"--how does that make sense?

Thankfully, they were able to squeeze us onto the flight.  Jack was a champ.  He played and watched movies during the first flight and fell asleep on the second!


And this little guy did pretty well too!  I am really thankful...I was worried he would cry both flights!

We had a busy two weeks in Mississippi.  Since we were missing a couple of days of school, we needed to do some educational trips.  We took Jack to the planetarium, the Ag museum, and the Mississippi Children's Museum.


The Ag museum was fun, but it was cold and rainy the day we went.  I would love to go back when he gets a little older, because I always loved the Ag museum growing up.

Also, his firefighter outfit is completely unintentional!  (The Ag museum just had a big fire a couple of months ago!)


Ansley has some better pics from the Children's museum, but I snapped this one.  If you live in Mississippi and have never been here, you NEED to go!  I love this museum!  It is so fun and there are so many different activities for kids to do.  I have been to tons of children's museums, and this one is definitely at the top of my list!



We also took a whirlwind trip to Oxford for a family friend's wedding with Bech's family.  Here is Jack's first picture with Faulker.  Yes, he is smoking his pipe.  I did not encourage that.  I blame Bech!



Gil got to meet some more of his Aunts and Uncles.  Here is my sister Ansley getting some snuggles in with Gilly boy.


Jack had the best time in Mississippi.  He had adoring fans every day and lots of different toys to play with.  He found his old Santa outfit (he wore it when he was 6 months old) and wouldn't take it off that whole day!


Finally, we are to Christmas morning.  Here is Gil, getting snuggles from Aunt ME.


We have kind of a crazy and busy Christmas schedule.  We eat dinner and go to church in Brookhaven with my family.  We hop in the car and head to Jackson.  We hang out a little with Bech's family then head to bed.  We do Christmas morning, presents, and brunch with Bech's family, then head back down to Brookhaven around 1.  Then we do presents with my family and finish it all up with Christmas dinner.  Busy but worth it!


Jack definitely figure out the whole opening presents this year.
And he was a big of any sort of dress up present.  He loves his new knight outfit!



Jack at Christmas brunch!


I love this picture.  In typical Braden fashion, Jack has on (mid opening) new clothes and is holding a new toy.  Also, he didn't take that hat/mask off for days!
Gil got some Bella snuggles.


Katy and Dave (my sister and brother-in-law) have luckily worked there schedule out so that it is similar to ours.

Jack LOVES the book Corduroy.  Bech and I were so excited to find a Corduroy bear at Square Books Jr. in Oxford.  Jack loves his new little bear!


My mom's beautiful dining room table.


This picture cracked me up.  Bech and his brothers loved Where's Waldo books growing up.  Bech's grandmother, Inger, gave Jack his first Waldo book when he was 2 and Jack now loves them too!  Bech bought Jack a new Waldo book for Christmas...but it looks like Bech and Josh are enjoying it even more!  Notice that Jack is not sitting anywhere near...


We ended up the holidays with some football watching...ouch!  This was not a good ending to Mississippi football!  But at least I have the cutest little fans.


This guy makes me laugh each and every day.


We spent New Year's Eve with my family, but only made it to 8:30 before we opened the champagne and started getting ready for bed!  


We flew home the next afternoon.  Again, the boys did a great job on the flights!  I am hoping to fly home alone with both of them sometime this spring, so I am glad this trip was a success.

We had a wonderful trip, but we are glad to be back in Pennsylvania.  Jack is back at school, and Bech starts his last semester of grad school today!

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