More December....

In mid-December Carleen (my sis) graduated with honors from nursing school at Duke! My family, Grady and I attended the pinning ceremony, and Brandon and Landon met up with us all later for a celebratory dinner. She was offered a job at Duke as a labor and delivery nurse and will be starting in late February. Congrats Carleen!

Grady did some artwork during the ceremony. :)

That same week Grady had a Christmas performance at preschool. While he didn't really sing during the performance, he did a great job playing the drum during one song (and smiled a lot)! We can't really blame him for not singing....he has two parents who were also pretty shy as kids! :) 

A Spontaneous Trip!

About two weeks ago, we spontaneously decided to take a trip to Florida! The idea began as an email conversation between Brandon and I about how we'd love to get away that weekend to somewhere warm.... That was then followed by an email to Kelly saying, "What are you guys up to this weekend?" That was Wednesday evening, and Friday morning we left! It's not often you can be that spontaneous with two little kids, so we were pretty proud of ourselves for doing this! We stayed for four nights and had a great time! What is even better is that we didn't have to pack our usual baby gear (stroller, high chair, etc.) because Kelly and Louis have everything....that is a definite plus! So, in addition to going somewhere warm, we go to visit with Kelly, Louis and our precious little niece Hannah (who we hadn't seen since August)! Grady, Landon and Hannah had a great time playing together as always.

On Saturday we went to the farmer's market where Louis was selling fruit for Schacht Groves, then went to a fun Carolina Club game-watching party (organized by Kelly and Louis), and then went to downtown Vero Beach for the Christmas parade. The floats were very impressive, and we had a great time!

Hannah loves walking around now!



This was after Grady had a blue lollipop!

On Sunday, Kelly and I took the kids to the art museum because they were having a special Christmas event. They all ended up getting to sit on Santa's lap, and Grady even had some time alone with Santa afterwards to tell him what he wanted (a watch and a "car racer").

Here we are taking a snack break while Grady did some arts and crafts!

Brandon spent Sunday and Monday helping Louis out in the packing house since this is their busiest time of year. If you have never tasted Schacht Groves fruit you definitely need to! They have the best oranges and grapefruit we've ever had (and we're not just saying that). In fact, Grady won't even eat oranges from the grocery store now because he says he doesn't like them. He says he only likes Uncle Louis' oranges. Visit their web site at http://www.schachtgroves.com/ if you would like to order some fruit! :)

This is an effort to contain Landon and Hannah in the packing house! Didn't last long!

Grady absolutely loved packing fruit!

Here he is monitoring the store....

Thanksgiving in Pinehurst!

We had a second Thanksgiving celebration in Pinehurst last weekend and got to see a lot of family from all over, which was great! (Thanks for all the great food Mimi!) :)  The boys had a great time as always!

Grady loved reading books with Michelle. :)

We went over to the Pinehurst Hotel the day after to look at all the pretty Christmas decorations. This was of course an ideal setting for a Christmas card picture....thanks to everyone who endured the long photo shoot!

Prior to going to Pinehurst, we put our Christmas tree up and decorated. Grady of course loved it, and Landon thought the idea of the tree was pretty neat too. He loved taking ornaments off the tree and bringing them to us, which is really cute. (Don't worry...all the breakable ornaments are out of his reach!)