Random pictures

Just a bunch of random photos from my phone, etc that I finally uploaded!

this is how tucker likes to have a snack every once in awhile-he will go get what he wants to eat out of the cabinet and bring the food and the truck to us:)

we got this free slide and put it in the basement-attempt at some indoor activity this winter:)

tucker is incredibly clumsy-we tried to put a helmet on him-he got really mad!  but he's getting a kid's helmet for christmas:)

fire seats at Grandma and Papa's house:)

fun in the HOOSE

we took a family outing to the zoo a few weekends ago.  Tucker loved the monkeys!

he's always a fan of the carousel

playing at his new table and chair set:) We are totally a kid house now!

he loves to build his blocks.  He did this beauty all by himself!

for all of his falling and clumsiness, he finally got his first really bad bump/bruise on his head

tucker was in HEAVEN when the trucks came to pick up from hurricane sandy...at least 30 min of fun!

celebrating my 30th birthday at my parents house

christmas tree shopping (see previous post for more pics of this)

totally caught in the act of doing something he shouldn't be...he's getting much feistier lately!

playing:)

these two are so cute and really love each other already!

this face is just TOO adorable!

tucker misses seeing Addie every day-he was SOOOO excited when she and Miss Lynne came to play last week:)

Max's sexy pants he got from our Community Group Grab Bag

Tucker rocking the sexy pants:)

it was so cute-he went into Max's closet and put on his shoes...on the wrong feet:)

Danielle is back in the U S of A!!!! Tucker was a bit confused at first that she wasn't in the computer, but he was SOOO excited when he finally figure it out.  They had a dance party already!

he's been newly obsessed with lining up his cups and pretending to pour milk into them all...

fun with wrapping paper rolls:)

6 weeks:)

Well Brayden Thomas is 6 weeks already!! Woo Hoo! He is growing by leaps and bounds!! He had his 6 week check up yesterday and weighed in at 10 pounds, 11.5 ounces and was 22.25 inches long.  That means that he gained almost 3 pounds and grew 2.25 inches in 4 weeks.  He is so cute and good so far, so I'm just hoping he continues on this path.

On a different note, our dear friend Kristen Scott, came to take some pics of Brayden and out family.  She is so incredibly talented and we love putting her gifts to use whenever we can.  

Here's some more pics on her blog that she took:

http://www.the2654project.com/photography-blog/2012/12/3/family-the-zietzes.html

sample of the cuteness that Kristen captured

Moby love:)

meeting Jay!!

Activity Advent

Everyone says that Christmas is more fun with kids, and I would have to agree!  The all-important meaning of Christmas and the excitement that we feel surrounding Christ's birth doesn't change, but it is so fun to experience all of the traditions of the Christmas season with Tucker (Brayden, unfortunately, has no clue what is going on!)  

I really wanted to be sure that we didn't let the craziness that is the Christmas season drown out the real meaning of the day and I didn't want to let the craziness make it fly by too fast to experience all that the season has to offer.  Cue Pinterest!  I found a few ideas for advent calendars and finally decided to make an activity advent calendar.  I took some of the activities from blogs I found online, and others I just added.  I also found an advent calendar that has different Bible verses that share the story of Jesus's birth over the course of the month.  And thus our activity/Bible verse advent calendar was born.  

I bought some cardstock, Christmas stickers, a clip board, scarpbooking paper and some Modge Podge and created our calendar:)

We've been really good about doing all of the activities so far (we are only 1 week in) and I'm hopefully that we can keep up our streak:) Here's what we've done so far and some pictures (which I think are in previous posts too)-I have to find some pictures from other days too somewhere.

Day 1: Cut Down our Tree

 Day 2: Decorate the Tree

 Day 3: Decorate Tucker's Felt Tree

Day 4: Read a Christmas Book (we got a Peekaboo Christmas book)

Day 5: Have a playdate (with Blake and Chad) and open a new ornament (fire truck)

Day 6: Watch a Christmas movie with mom (Charlie Brown Christmas Movie)

Day 7: Go play with Addie

Day 8: Visit with cousins and GG

Day 9: Shop for a gift for a child in need (can't say he totally got this one-in fact, he started to point to all of the cars as we were buying a matchbox car set!)

This week will bring more exciting things to do!

O Christmas Tree

This year was the fourth annual Christmas tree cutting tailgate with our friends at Maple Row Tree Farm. It's been fun to see how this tradition has grown each year with more couples and more kids. This was the coldest of all the years so we left Brayden with my parents.  We all managed to find a tree within 30 minutes this year-by far a HUGE record. We actually ended up getting the first tree we found:)

the original crew:)

the whole crew this year

matching hats, coats, and saws!

our tree!!

We had a minor issue with the stand and getting the tree up, but we eventually got it up with lights on before bed.

We decorated it on Sunday. I wasn't too sure how Tucker would do decorating, but he got really in to unwrapping the ornaments and trying to put them on the tree.  It was very cute!

...like son!

like father...

 Even though I know Tucker doesn't understand everything about Christmas yet, I wanted to start some traditions that he could enjoy. Sooooo thanks to Pinterest, and a little bit of my brain too, I made an advent with daily activities and Bible verses.  The first day was to cut down the tree, the second to decorate it, and the third was to decorate this felt tree that I made (again thanks to Pinterest).  Tucker seemed to like it and now we have a tree that he can decorate and undecorate and redecorate as much as he wants!

The big 3-0

Well I finally turned 30!  Growing up I was always on the older side for my grade, but now in life, I find that I am often the youngest.  Needless to say, Max is excited that I am FINALLY in my 30s.  With a one month old at home, I wasn't really looking to do anything too exciting since I was exhausted!  It was one of the more mellow birthdays that I've had-I wasn't even at work!  I did drop Tucker off with the babysitter for a couple hours which was a nice break!  Max came home for lunch and then we went to my parents for a nice dinner.  The best part was that I got to sleep from 11-6 since Max got up with Brayden!  We will go out to dinner or something and celebrate a little more when we aren't so tired:)  For now, I will enjoy the fact that I have officially caught up with my slew of friends who have already turned 30:)

One Month!!

Well Brayden has already been making our lives a little more exciting for one month!  Time flies even faster with the second one! Although, I do find myself thinking that we should "already be at a certain point"-like sleeping through the night (wishful thinking)! I guess its just a testament to how quickly time really does fly because those first two months of Tucker's life really did fly by!

So far Brayden has been a dream! He rarely cries, unless he's hungry and I haven't fed him yet.  He has a fussy time around dinner, but it's not even really that bad.  He sleeps a TON and has been pretty good about not needing to be held all the time. It's been nice to be able to put him down so that I can play with Tucker while he sleeps. 

He is a much faster eater than Tucker (moving from 45 min-25-30 on average).  He was a really sleepy eater when he first started and he still is, but not as bad.  By the time I change his diaper and wake him up a ton, it can take up to 50 minutes to feed him, but I'll take it compared to how long Tucker took to eat.  He's been eating pretty much every two hours during the day. He's been going to bed around 830/930 and then typically gets up twice per night.  Max attempts to give him a dream feed but he hasn't been taking it much.  Some nights I luck out and he only gets up one times and then again at 630ish.  Not bad:)

 Tucker is a very good big brother so far. He did hit him in the head once, prompting a very angry/unhappy response from me and he has yet to repeat the offense, so I'm hoping he learned something.

Brayden has been such a joy and is so stinking cute and is starting to actually be up a little bit more which we are excited for.  ANDDDDD He started to smile!! A lot! He's super cute of course when he does it!  Here's some pictures from his one month birthday!

The North Pole Express

The Essex Steam Train transforms each Christmas season to the North Pole Express.  We decided it would be fun to go this year so we went with our wonderful neighbors.  Their daughters are Tucker's best buds and are a bit older (7 & 4) so they were able to experience the ride in a bit of a different way than Tucker.  Tucker was so excited to be going on a trip with his girls and to be going on a "choo choo." It was a very cute ride.  There is an elf (we had Jolly) on each train and they sing and dance and play games and then Santa and Mrs. Claus come and hand out a gift (bell) and hot cocoa and sugar cookies.  They had a dance party (which Tucker thoroughly enjoyed-I will try to get the video up soon-it's so cute!) too and we actually got to visit the "North Pole"! Here are a bunch of pictures that Kathleen took since we decided not to bring our camera-we had our hands full with Brayden's stuff and Tucker.  Brayden was a champ-slept the whole ride up and most of the train ride too!  

the note Jack left for Sienna & Addie

the guys holding down the fort

family photo in front of the steam engine

jolly the elf

enjoying his gift from Santa

he was LOVING his cookie and hot cocoa-had to transfer it to his cup b/c I kept spilling it out of the other cup on him!

walking to the train.  They take such good care of Tucker:)

yum! cookie!

Mrs. Claus

some post hot cocoa energy:)

Thanks for "taking us" Hoefer family!!!