MORE MORE MORE XMAS!!!

On the FIRST day of Christmas my true love gave to me!!! A MILLION PICTURES OF MY LITTLE BABY!!! We have soooo many pictures, it was really hard to tell which ones we should post. One thing I did note is that it is REALLY hard to get some of kiddos unwrapping ANYTHING! They are so fast and mostly you just get backside! Will have to work on that in upcoming events for birthdays and next Christmas too! GEEZ! Anyhow, these are from Christmas Day dinner and presents! See our next post for more of Grayson in his ELFKIN OUTFIT! Oh JOY!!! So cute! Anyhow, here's the Braun Residence with the Kleinknight Family and the Radtke Bunch too!! Hope you all enjoy!!
Uh let's get started with mashed taters, mashed peas, mashed yams, mashed meat??
Carousin' with the cousins!!
Oh my head HURTS!!! Too much mashed mashed mashed yum-yums!!
I'm not sneakin' anything into my gob! HONEST! I think this is about the time that Great Nanny Joyce slipped a piece of PUMPKIN PIE onto the tray... Gotta watch out for that Great Nanny! She is soooo wiley!!!

Uh, you guys have got a LOT of energy!!!
Again my HEAD!!!
Another classic, Grayson is digging doing his TARZAN imitation!! Mama TK started this one night, not sure really why, probably to get the peas to go down the gob instead of going down on the floor!! So, I started doing Tarzan and its stuck, Gray can do it too! HOORAY!
Papa CK and niece Taryn Lee Radtke! Cutest kiddos on the block those Radtke kids!!
Here's another one! They're EVERYWHERE! Go Spidey-Garrett!!!

With a little assistance from Papa CK we can get this done!! VERY exciting!!
Oooooooooooooooooh! Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! Apparently there was almost a bidding war for this little goody for the Kleinknight tree! Auntie Megan got this Paul Frank JULIUS Monkey ornament for their household and its a winning smash!!
Cousin Kylee, I think this is the best pic we have of her solo unfortunately! She's a busy little girl!! My little tough cookie niece!! Hooray!! Toys and build your own fort too!
Garrett??!?! Are you sleeping?!?!?
Ah hah!!! TURKEY!!! The deep fried evil yum yum turkey!! YIPPEEEE

Curtis should be cheatin' in no time!! Somehow that just doesn't sound right?!?!
YOU!!! No YOU!!!! Grayson really has this point thing DOWN!!!
Do a little dance, disco baby, jungle boogie!!!
And we have lift off ladies and gentlemen!!

AND.................. I'm out!!

ALL DONE!

Yippee!! Grayson't FIRST X-MAS!!!

YOU GUESSED IT!!! It's Grayson's FIRST Christmas!! Officially!! It was kind of funny because originally we thought this would be his second, since we tried to induce on the 23rd of December last year. Confused a lot of folks, including us when he didn't show as directed, marching to the beat of his own drum already this kid!! So here's the real first X-mas without further adieu, many many pix of Gray to wade through, so hopefully you will enjoy a few favorites!!
The COY Christmas Elf!!
These with Grayson in the chair just reminded me of a flower or something artistic you might see in a baby's picture book so I had to include all the ones where he was posing in the elf hat!
The GRUMPY Elf!! Scrooge McElf!!
See - sort of like a blooming flower elf? I'm not sure why I like this one so much! Maybe it just WAY too early in the AM for me to be up working on this!! HAR HAR!
The Traditional Elf! Complete with Kris Kringle, Mr. Claus or Father Santa should you prefer!
First Christmas!!!
I'm not peeking!!!
Nope not going to look at the camera!!!
In the chair and ready for the Christmas morning breakfast please!!

Still a little shell shocked?? We drove A LOT and through a lot of fog this Christmas holiday. It was quite the adventure. Most of it in the wee hours of the morning. I think we spent about five hours on the road getting to and fro to various grandparent houses to spread the Xmas cheer!
More flower elf like pictures!
Grayson's biggest thing right now that he is into (other than "BALL!!!") is to point! A LOT!!
Crouching Elf, Hidden Presents...
Getting ready at Grandma Gale's house and kicking it in the spare guest bed!

More of the same!!
Ditto!!
More breakhast shots??
Grandma Gale and Grayson!!
We hope you enjoyed some of the Christmas pictures of Grayson in some of his first Christmas pictures! There is a WHOLE lot more... Going to do a seperate post in a minute of more Braun household pictures from Christmas Day. Need to get pictures from our cousins who helped photo Grayson with Santa on Christmas Eve too! Somehow Mommy TK & Daddy CK dropped the ball on that one... And the camera didn't make it to the Christmas Eve at the Kleinknight household. Mama is feeling pretty lame about that! But on the whole it was such a fun, merry event at both family places and we'd like to thank you all for sharing!! Love - Tristan, Curtis and of course GRAYSON!!!

HALLOWEEN PIX!!

Hey here they are!! HALLOWEEN BUDDIES on the town!

It's a little late for posting it, just two months behind the times, we sure have a busy family. As those of you may have heard from our Christmas ramblings, even that was a half letter! Curt was asked to show the president of his company around boo-tiful Fresno (yikes!) and I've been accepted to accelerate my schooling and graduate early! HOORAY! Grayson is officially ONE!! But not in these pix - he's at ten months! ENJOY! And now that I'm on winter break hope to post his B-day pix soon and Christmas ones too! LOVE TO ALL!

Here is Grayson and his bestest buddy Mason they are a few months apart and make for perfect monkeys on Halloween!! It cracked us parents up with the queries - "are they twins??" - nope, but they sure look cute together dressed the same huh??
Grayson peeking out of monkeydom purty curious about the world at the time... I was amazed that neither of the boys cried and basically had a good time running about in the dark, with other scary kids doing the same and what not. They're tough kiddos!
Grayson is the one minus a sock, we COULD NOT keep those on!!! And he ALMOST got into the KitKat, but - it was mostly avoided. Mason on the other hand scored with his Nerds and promptly shared like a good friend should right?? Enjoy the sugar rush!
YES!!! I'll take that pleassssssssseeeeeeee!!!
Final pic kinda SPOOKY huh?? I didn't think digital cameras could double expose, but yet - here it tis!! Maybe we had someone "with" us on our tour of the town in our quest for chocolates and sweets?!?! Who knows??

The WIG!!

It was halloween night and all the creatures of the house were restless... and amped on incredible amounts of sugar and chocolate... and someone whipped out - - - THE WIG!!!

Baby Grayson - in THE WIG!!
Mama Tristan in - THE WIG!!
Best Friend Mason in - THE WIG!
Mama Tristan's Bestest Bud Robyn in - THE WIG!!
Uncle Eric in - THE WIG!!

Gonna do a few more posts right after this one to get folks caught up! Sorry it took so long, finals this semester were REALLY REALLY tough!! Love to all!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

SOOOOO... I realize its been awhile since I've posted!! HEH, been busy busy with nursing school, my poor kiddo! I had him help me with a SIDS prevention campaign... This is part of a "post-test" I gave to new mamas to identify SIDS risk factors, i.e. drinking and smoking around your kiddo, blankets and pillows and toys galore in the crib, the day of the week, overbundling and so on and so forth!!! But LOOK at that FACE!! I can tell that Grayson was eager to help in this project, "Uh, hey mom, like what ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!?".... Sighs, well my teacher said it was creative and will help make a lasting impression! I hope it helps someone!! :)

I am OBSESSED with taking shots of Grayson's face when he's sleepin! He's such an angel!! I used my hand in front of the flash to obtain the lighting effect BTW!!

Grayson at nine months with his "I can feed myself" face!! I let him have the spoon I think maybe twice and SOME of it got in his mouth. Not really sure how much tho!! He was late to crawl, rolling like at 6 months and "Commando" crawling at eight months, just like GI JOE under the barbwire, it was hilarious!! Then crawling at nine, but after two weeks of "real" crawling he decided its more fun to stand up and cruise using things and he still crawls REALLY fast! We cannot keep up with this kid! Its just amazing how time flies!!

We have some more of these pix we took at the cabin to get a good "ten month" picture, although its about two weeks early. But this was then one that just cracked me up! This kid just kills me! He's a comedian and tries to make faces to make you laugh, and does a snorting thing, I think this might be mid-snort!! Anyhow, it busted me up so I'm including it instead of his more serious ones, maybe I will have time to post those later!!

STILL not sure that we will use this one for Xmas cards, the rest really aren't all that either. Darn timers!! One of us looks good in just about every pic, although in just about every pic Grayson's hands are somewhere, could be ANYWHERE!! So, we will see!!! BUT this is grrrrreat to use as a HAPPY HALLOWEEN from the Kleinknight Family!!! Hope you enjoyed the quick update!! Ohhhh - almost forgot! I'm on track to graduate early in May 2008 versus December! HOORAY! Had to petition, and it was a piece of cake! Hopefully I will have the initials RN behind my already long name by June or July of next year! Will keep everyone posted! And... Curt got a raise and I took a leave from my job to have more time for school and family... So, we will see how that goes! Kinda tight on the budget but it will all work out!!

Love to all!! Tristan, Curtis and Grayson

At seven months...

SURPRISE!!! I'm almost 7 months old in this pic! HOORAY!!

Playing around with Photofiltre, which I think you can google and find for free... Its a neat program and we've had fun playing with Grayson's pictures. This is "old photo" I think!!

One thing for sure is changing, these beautiful baby blues are starting to go green... I think I'm going to miss that, but they are still so pretty!! Thank goodness he's got daddy's eyelashes!!

In the car on the way to Monterey... Sepia wash with a "photo masque" that adds other images, like the little leaf!! This is another calm before the storm moment actually. He was really tired of the car tip and let us know it for sure about 10-15 minutes later!!

My serious little boy... Still at least a month behind on posting his latest photos, still need to post Morro Bay and Montery and much much more!! But this is what we've got until then, love to all!

Japanese Gardens, Fresno CA

Over the summer we were fortunate to have my cousin Tori from KY fly in to assist with caring for our son Grayson while I attempted to work and complete summer school!! It was the best time ever, the classes were a success and we were also able to enjoy several little mini-vacations along the way. One place we went was close to home, and the family hadn't even seen it before, so we went to the Japanese Gardens in Fresno!!

The area was well manicured, and California native and Japanese plants were used to create a lush environment where one could relax and enjoy a "traditional" type of atmosphere that is found in a Japanese Garden. It was beautiful!! Check and see!!

Grayson was a little hot and tired, and at first - not too sure that he was going to like the place I think!! But we packed water, had on a summer jumper that was pretty cool and hit the trails!

The area surrounds a manmade lake where there are koi fish and turtles abound! Also running about were several peacocks, peahens and their baby pea-chicks!! HOORAY!!

Grandma Gale checking out the water. Wish we had a pic of Tori up here, maybe Grandma Gale has... There is one of us up there too, but baby is looking way away... (And doesn't really flatter mommy's tummy either - yuck!!!) har har... Anyhow - this bridge is REALLY steep on either side and has a high peak in the middle so you can see all around the gardens. NEAT!

AND when all was said and done - check it out! You guessed it!! Even Grayson was totally amazed!! Hope you enjoyed our little outing! We have more pics we can send if anyone is interested, just drop me a line at my email!

Postings are slowing down a bit and may stay a bit slow for a time! Just started my 4th semester of Nursing School, so may be really really busy! We will see! Doing a pediatric rotation AND a OB/Delivery rotation so it should be pretty neat!! Will do our best to keep everyone posted on our lives!! Curt meanwhile just celebrated his first year with his company ACRT and all is going good there too! He loves it! Baby Grayson right now at 8 months!! He weighs over 21 pounds and is 30 inches or so tall - OFF THE CHARTS! EEK! What do we feed him you ask?? Mama's milk, fruits & veggies, weird new three stage foods - you have to look at these at the store to believe some of them (read the contents on BEEF DINNER!!) AND all the love that this kid could possibly handle happens too I think! Anyhow! Love to all! T, C & G! ! !