January Review

This January, I decided to document the whole month with Instagram pictures. I just love this app on my iPhone. It is so easy to take pictures and apply a filter. Then I choose to post them and share with my friends. My personal challenge this month came from Fat Mum Slim. 

She challenged us with various different ideas or prompts to take a picture of everyday. 

I loved it and this is what I have to show for it!

This is all of my pictures in one place. It was so much fun. And now for February! There are a couple of different prompts out there and I am still trying to decide which one to complete!

Feel free to come follow me on Instagram. Username: abbrandes

My Favorite Picture of 2011

After looking through kazillions of pictures that I took from last year, I have settled on this one as my favorite. Whew, that was hard! But love it!

Happy New Year

We just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year from the Brandes Boys!

2011

2011 was a busy year for the Brandes Household, but I'm starting to think, when is is not busy around here. I was such a bad blogger that I thought I might should do a brief re-cap of everything that happened.

January:

We had snow, snow, and more snow!

Carson was mobile and into everything.

February:

We had a Valentine's Mystery Dinner (that was so much fun).

Warren played basketball.

And Carson got his first haircut.

March:

Carson turned ONE!

We celebrated Dr Seuss' Birthday and a yummy St Patty's Day.

And went to the park.

April:

We celebrated Easter and Christ rising from the dead.

We participated in some Easter Egg Hunts.

And started baseball for Ben and visited some more parks.

May:

Warren graduated from Tender Treasures.

Ben had his first piano recital.

We went on our annual Memorial Day Camping trip.

June:

We went to VBS's, TN Aquarium, and the Drive In.

I hosted a canning party and a 5 year-old birthday party.

July:

We bought a 5th Wheel trailer.

We went to our annual Fall Creek Falls trip.

We went to Washington, DC.

We went camping (and ran out of electricity and came home).

We took a trip to FL while Daddy went to Argentina.

And celebrated Camden's 3rd birthday (our nephew).

Whew, July was a busy month!

August:

School started- Ben is in the 2nd grade and Warren is in Kindergarten.

We went back to parks

and went kayaking.

September:

We picked up Benelli and went camping (and came home cause it was raining and Carson was sick).

Ben started Boy Scouts.

We went to the fair, fall festivals, and the air show.

and played Upward Football.

October:

We said goodbye to Tyler's Grandfather. 

Celebrated Tyler's and Ben's Birthday.

Loooooonnnnngggg road trip with the RV.

Disney World!!!

Hosted a Pizza Party, Grandma and Poppa, jumped in some leaves, Amazing Acres and Halloween.

November:

Jumped in some more leaves.

Lots of crafts.

Went to FL for Thanksgiving.

Celebrated 9 years of marriage.

December:

Tyler and I went to KY to celebrate our anniversary.

Benelli broke her femur.

Awana awards, Jumpville, Christmas parade, Christmas concert, and Christmas Church Play.

Celebrating Hanukah, and the birth of the King.

What in the world will 2012 hold!

InstaFriday

I'm finally back sharing my Instagram Pics from the week! Love using this free app on my iphone to share my week.

• Last Friday night we had the pleasure of attending a Hanukah celebration! We had so much fun eating yummy (different) food, lighting the candles, learning about Hanukah, and playing dreidels. 
• I made Homemade Vanilla for Christmas presents this year. Sooooo easy to do and everyone loved it!

• Christmas eve.
• Christmas Morning.
• Christmas evening.

• I made these yummy treats for Christmas eve brunch.
• Legos, Legos, and more Legos. We have way too many Legos in our house.
• We went to our first skating party. It was so much fun!
• Carson. Enough said. This kid cracks me up!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas morning we have a tradition of staying home and opening presents with just our immediate family. This year was no exception. We had all the presents downstairs for the boys. The oldest two woke up first, and since Carson isn't feeling well, I let him sleep. The first presents they saw were the Star Wars toys. They LOVE them!

  Next, they opened their stocking. Such fun little items. Then we moved on to their presents. Tyler and I both loved seeing their awe and amazement written on their faces. They had so much fun!

When Carson did wake up, he came downstairs and opened his presents too. He is at a fun age to open. He loves his Little People car!

I surprised Tyler with a custom knife from R.E.H. Knives and he surprised me with a Col. Littleton handbag (I love it!).

12 Days of Christmas

As some of you may know the 12 days of Christmas don't start until after Christmas and end with Epiphany on January 6th. Epiphany is usually the time we celebrate the wise men's visit to the newborn King. Living in Florida we always heard about epiphany with the young men jumping in the freezing water for the cross at Tarpon Springs.

 I was actually looking for something to do with my kids this next week while they were out of school and I stumbled upon Frugal Granola's A Natural Noel. It's a great crafting book, easy to do with kids, and provides a bible reference to back up what you are doing each day. It works through the 12 Days of Christmas song. I am really looking forward to doing it with my kids this week.

And today it's on sale! You can get it for 99 cents with code NOEL99.

Warren Clothes

I'm GIVING away all of these shirts. They say size 4 but I would probably use for size 3T. Play clothes quality. All except one are EmTanner Designs. NO CHARGE! Just want them to go to a good home. Please leave me an email where I can contact you and get your mailing address. Thanks!