Sesame Street Live

I'm pretty sure Sesame Street Live has been around longer than I have.  My one take away fun fact was that the Sesame Street show first aired in 1969.  Heck, It's almost in the same league as Days of Our Lives.  Very different genre, but same type of longevity. 

Cory and I thought it would be fun for Brady to go to the show this past weekend.  While Buzz Light Year, Cars & Thomas the Train have surpassed Elmo on the cool list he still enjoys a little Elmo from time to time.  I will say that if you don't have a 18 month - 4 year old with you I highly recommend not attending the show.  All in all it wasn't the greatest entertainment, but Brady enjoyed it.  There were quite a few people who brought their infants thinking that they would maybe enjoy it.  If you are considering that, I would suggest rethinking it as a good percentage of them were crying.

On the positive side, there were less stands selling Sesame Street 'junk' than I expected.  When we went to Toy Story on Ice we were inundated with paraphernalia to the point you could not avoid it.  Brady only requested a "spinning light toy" two times during the show and we managed to escape spending about $6- one cup of donut holes for $1.25, a hot chocolate for $1.00 and a $4.00 bottle of water.  One nice thing about the Sprint Center is they have a QuickTrip in the arena where you can buy some things at normal prices.  Can you guess which items were bought at QuickTrip versus the standard concession stand?  Also, we scored a free parking spot which was an added bonus.

Will I be rushing to buy tickets for next year's Sesame Street Live?  Probably not.  With that said, it was a fun morning for Brady and something different than our normal Saturday routine.

Brady and Cory trying to look 'grouchy'.

Expanding from 3 to 4

I guess it’s time to make the news official.  The Woods Family will have a new addition in early June.   I am currently 19 weeks along so almost at the half way point.  We are very excited!

When we first told Brady we were expecting back in November his reaction was hilarious.  If I recall, it went something like this.  Brady, we’re going to have a new baby joining our family.  Brady, “Huh”.  Mommy is going to be having a baby.   Brady, “Ok, Let’s go to Target and pick out a baby.”  No, the baby is inside Mommy’s belly.  Brady, “I can’t see it.”   Brady proceeds to lose interest. 

We continued to talk about the baby and finally convinced him that in fact the baby was not coming from Target.  He even started saying that he wanted a little sister.  One day, he was talking about his sister and I asked him if a sister was a girl or a boy.  Brady said boy.  I explained to him that a sister is a girl.  Brady states, “I want a boy and I want him to be three.”  I think to myself this is going to be a pretty impossible feat, but I have plenty of time to convince Brady it’s ok if the baby is not three.

Wednesday morning we had our sonogram.  Before we headed to the appointment we asked Brady one more time whether he wanted a brother or a sister and he said a boy.  After we picked Brady up from school we showed him the Ultrasound pictures.  Then we told him he was going to have a little sister.  Brady’s reaction with a very serious face, “No, it’s a boy.”   We talked about it for a couple more minutes and he finally agreed that he was ok with having a sister and that he was going to be a helper.  Specifically he’s offered up his services to feed and play with the baby.  We will see how that goes when the time comes.  

We are very thrilled to have a baby girl joining the family.  Our bank account may suffer, but it will be well worth it.

I am typically not a fan of posting ultrasound pictures since I can never tell what I’m looking at, but I am going to share anyways.

Blue Mommy!

For about the past month, Brady has randomly told me he wants a blue mommy.  For the most part I just thought to myself random and explain to him he's going to have a hard time finding a blue mommy.  Well, it all came together the week before Christmas as we were watching TV and a commercial for the Smurfs comes on.  Brady gets really excited and starts yelling "There's my blue mommy."  Apparently he wants Smurfette to be his mom.  We have never watched the Smurfs or talked about the Smurfs so Cory and I both found this pretty amusing.  The only thing I can think of is over the summer McDonalds put Smurfs in the Happy Meals and I think he got at least a couple of Smurfs as prizes.  (Ashamed to admit we visit McDonalds at least twice a month)  Since we finally figured out who Brady's blue mommy is we decide we better rent the Smurfs.  Not the best movie, but hey for Red Box prizes you can't go too wrong.  Neither Cory or Brady had much interest in watching the whole thing, but it entertained me a little.  Something about mixing real people with animated characters just doesn't feel quite right.

Christmas 2011

Christmas Itinerary:

Christmas #1 - Cory's parents and Grandma Ruth came to KC to celebrate the weekend of the 16th.  It was Brady's first year participating in the annual Woods Christmas game and of course he was a big winner.

Christmas #2 - Cory, Brady and I celebrated at home on the 23rd.  We made sure to let Santa know we would be out of town on Christmas Eve so he could stop by early.  Brady must have been a good boy as he got everything on his list.  (Yes, he is spoiled.)  He was thrilled with everything and pretty amused that Santa included some underwear in his stocking since that was 'not a toy'.

Christmas #3 - We headed to mom's house in Edmond, Oklahoma on the 23rd.  On Christmas Eve we went to church and then enjoyed a steak and lobster dinner at home.  I should say some enjoyed the lobster, I unfortunately have a bad lobster allergy. 

Christmas #4 - On Christmas morning we drove to Wichita to celebrate with my grandparents and cousins.  Brady had lots of fun running around with Grayson.  Grandma was happy as she got her picture of the grandkids.

I did a pretty terrible job of taking pictures given that I didn't take a single picture at my Mom's and only the picture of my cousins at my Grandmas.  Below are a few highlights from when we did remember to use the camera.





Holiday Fun!

We had lots of holiday fun during December.  Brady loves the lights, decorations and just holiday spirit in general.  We also had welcomed an elf into our family a couple of weeks ago.  Brady named the elf Pepper and loved looking for him in the mornings.  Lots of questions were asked in the early days of having Pepper in the house.  "Why do I not see him move?"  "Why can't I touch him?"  "Where does he live when he's not here?"  We ensured Brady of the elves important role helping Santa and his skepticism seemed to disappear.

Brady also loved looking at the nativity set in our house and would point out baby Jesus.  We tried to emphasize the real meaning of Christmas, but not sure Santa helped us out too much with this message since he ended up getting everything on his list plus more.  We told him not all little boys and girls were as lucky as he is, but his response was "Santa makes the toys and he doesn't need money".  I guess having a fictitious character who doesn't need money bring the gifts makes it slightly more difficult to teach gratitude.  Maybe next year we can drive this message home a little better.

Early in the month we ventured out to Crown Center and Union Station.  We had never been there during the holidays.  It was very busy, but we had a nice time.  Brady saw Santa for the 3rd time and got to see several train exhibits.  Definitely worth a visit during the holidays, but I think next year we'll shoot to be there very first thing in the morning.

Cerner had a kid's holiday party that was a real hit with Brady.  It was perfect for a 3 year old as they had about 12 different stations with activities set up.  Activities included games, arts and crafts, letters to Santa and some food activities.  Every kid went home with a gift from Santa.  I think this was the point in December when Brady's Santa list grew a little longer.  It started off with only a couple items, but the letter we wrote a the party included additional requests to get Buzz Light Year his friends Woody, Jessie and Slinky Dog.  I guess Buzz has been lonely and needed some company.

 

 

Just before Christmas we had the opportunity to get together with some of our Iowa friends and have a kids ornament exchange.  Brady had fun playing with the kids and came home with a cool ornament.

It's been a busy, but fun December.

Thanksgiving & Santa

Brady has been very excited about the holidays.  He made my day when at school they did an activity about what they are thankful for and he said he was most thankful for his Mommy and Daddy.  Many of the other kids were thankful for toys, random food items or cartoon characters, but Brady very confidently said his Mommy and Daddy.  Awww.    I will take the compliment as just a couple of days earlier he told me at dinner time he wanted a different Mommy because I was making him drink his milk.

For Thanksgiving we visited Cory’s family in Peoria.  While we were there we were able to attend the Santa Clause parade.  It was windy, but the weather wasn’t too bad for watching the parade.  The floats, bands and people keep Brady’s attention for a good hour and a half.  He waved at every one who came by and thought it was pretty cool.  Santa along with Buzz Lightyear were the highlights.

We also made sure to visit Santa so Brady could tell him what he wanted for Christmas.  Brady had fallen asleep in the car on the way to go shopping so we put him in the stroller (this is the ideal scenario when shopping with a 3 year old boy as he will repeatedly remind you that he doesn’t like shopping).  He woke up right before we were going to leave so we decided to swing by to visit Santa.  As we got to where Santa was at,  Santa and Mrs. Clause were leaving as it turned out they closed at 5 and it was about 5:10.  Santa was so sweet though and offered to still let Brady come sit on his lap.  The great news is since they were officially closed the overpriced picture people had already left so we were free to take as many pictures with our own camera as we wanted.  I think I was just as thrilled as Brady since we weren’t going to be dropping $20 on a single print photo.  This was the first year Brady was not scared of Santa.  He set on Santa’s lap and told him he wanted a big kid basketball shoot (basketball goal), an air hockey table and a trampoline.  He has been pretty consistent on these items.  I have asked him a couple of times if there is anything else he wants from Santa and he has said no.   We’ll have to see what Santa thinks as these are awfully big items to fit in Santa’s sleigh.

Finger Treat!

Happy Halloween!  This year we had lots of fun celebrating Halloween.  Last year we were in London and for the most part Halloween isn't celebrated.  Brady was very excited to select his costume and participate in Halloween festivities.  His first request for a costume was Buzz Light Year.  The Buzz costume that I liked I couldn't find in a 3T (probably didn't look hard enough) so we had to resort to a backup costume.  I found a cute monkey costume so convinced Brady that would be a good second choice.  He was quite happy to be a monkey particularly because his monkey had a banana in the pocket.

We had a couple of Halloween events to prep for the big day.  Brady actually loved wearing his costume.  To be quite honest I was a bit surprised since his costume was all fleece and really hot and the weather was pretty warm.   

Brady was a real champ at trick or treating.  Before we went I asked him what he was supposed to do to make sure he was prepared.  He says, I go to the door and say finger treat please.  Finger treat?  I correct him and say no it's trick or treat.  He then proceeds to correct me and says, No Mommy it's finger treat.  Well, I guess it kind of makes sense since you grab the treats with your fingers.  If Brady wants to go finger treating that fine by me.