Saying Goodbye...

A couple of weeks ok we had to say goodbye to a very special person. Clayton had a very unique relationship with his grandparents. He grew up very close and still has a lasting bond with his father’s parents. That bond is the type of relationship that I am trying to replicate with my little one and her grandparents. Clayton’s grandfather hadn’t been doing very well and was in the hospital for a couple of weeks. We got the call that he had decided to let nature run its course and we packed our bags and headed to Dallas to make sure we were able to spend some time with him and the family before everyone had to say goodbye. We got to Dallas Friday evening and headed up to the hospital and spent a little bit of time with him but didn’t stay long so that he was able to rest. Clayton got up early Saturday morning and headed up to spend some time with Granny and I headed up around lunch. To say it was a great day is an understatement. The babies all played together in the waiting room, most of the cousins were together hanging out and you could feel this peace around everyone. Each of us had our moments where we would break down but we were all there for each other, that’s what family is for. Most everyone left early afternoon to either get ready for the Aggie game or start getting dinner prepared and give the little ones some outside time because it was truly a beautiful day outside. Granny had just finished dinner and received a call from Ray that he had peacefully passed away on the night of October 11, 2014. Family and Friends gathered a couple weeks later to say their goodbyes and well wishes. I still to this day catch myself talking about him as if he is still here. I don’t think that goes away in an instance. When I realized Clayton was going to lose his grandfather I realized that there was so much repressed emotion from when I lost mine, and I think through this process of saying goodbye it has helped me say goodbye to both.

The End of Summer

August and September went by in what seems like a blink of an eye. Tess has always loved Mickey Mouse Clubhouse but Clayton and I have worried that if we bought her anything Mickey that she wouldn’t put it down. Well at the beginning of August we decided to give in a little and give Tess her very own Minnie Mouse stuffed toy and she loved it. She was so excited when we gave her the toy. She danced around with the toy and didn’t leave it at the house for weeks. Eventually the newness wore off and she could leave it at home but she has to sleep with it every night.   

 

 That next weekend the motor in our outside AC unit went out and I came home from work to a very hot house. Tess went to my parents’ house and I stayed at the house hoping that someone would come out and take a look at it. Clayton was at work that night so he was at least in the A/C. Since no one was able to come out to take a look until Tuesday. I stayed at my parents’ house all weekend and then we stayed in a hotel on Monday night. I had to fly out to Denver for the day on Tuesday. The AC finally got fixed and the house returned to its nice cool usual self.

The same weekend the AC went out we had already planned on going to the Astros game with my parents after we went to dinner to celebrate Clayton’s birthday. Clayton turned 30 on August 4^th , he is an old man now. Well the Astros were playing the Rangers in the Lonestar Showdown. They were giving away cowboy hats and Tess was thrilled to have one. The Astros won that game, which was nice since usually the Rangers win.

 The following weekend, Clayton got a new phone since his was messing up. We brought his old phone to the mall to sell it back to this new machine which happened to be right by the carousel. Tess saw the carousel and had to go for a ride. I went with her and she had fun until she realized that the ride was over and she didn’t get to go again. I got a little motion sick on the ride, I think I will let Daddy go the next time.

One of the weekends that Clayton was at work and Tess and I were home alone, she put my heels on and started walking around. I think she walks better in them than I do.

 

Clayton and I had been getting ready for a garage sale for a while and putting things away in the guest room. We left the door open by mistake and Tess found her old walker. She went in and sat on her walker and kept saying she was driving the car. She had a towel on her head which she wouldn’t take off. She was pretty cute and I couldn’t resist taking a picture

 

We went to HEB and Tess saw the pumpkins and I put her up there and took one of the best pictures we have of her. We haven’t been to a pumpkin patch since she was a baby and I had thought maybe we could go this year but with everything going on we weren’t able to go back this year. There is always next year.

 

Clayton has been working a lot of weekends so Tess and I went up to visit Clayton up at the station one Saturday. Tess hasn’t been up to the station since she was little so it was a little weird for her. We took some pictures in front of the fire truck and watched a little bit of the A&M game and then I was about to go and meet my parents for dinner when Clayton was called out on a run. Tess was not happy that Clayton had to leave so we stood out in the bay and waved at him as he left and she still as we were getting in the car was crying for her daddy. She went through a couple of weeks of some separation anxiety and didn’t want to leave any family member. It was not awesome when we went to visit anyone.

 

We broke down again and bought a couple Mickey shirts. She hasn’t been that bad, she understands when her shirts are dirty and that mommy has to wash them before she can wear them again. One day I took her picture before daycare because she was wearing one of her beloved Mickey shirts and she was extra cute because her hair was braided in pigtails. I may be a little biased but I think I have the cutest kid around.

 

 
 

Dallas

We went to Dallas for a week in July to spend some time with the Harris Family and attend the annual Firefighter Olympics. Clayton was held over so Tess and I ran some errands before she went down for a nap. She had her sunglasses on and was ready to start Vacation, I had to take a picture to show her daddy that he needed to hurry up and get home so we could start our week away.

The first night we were there Caroline and Casey were at the house waiting on us to arrive. The girls still aren’t at an age where they will play with each other, but they played around each other. They are still learning how to share. It’s funny because both go to daycare and I guess they know how to share daycare toys but when it comes to their toys at home they don’t want to share. Caroline is 9 months younger than Tess but you wouldn’t know it if you looked at them side by side. Tess is a lot smaller for her age and Caroline is pretty big for her age.

That first Saturday we were there Tess saw the bubbles and wanted to play. She plays with bubbles at daycare so she knew exactly what they were and knew what was supposed to happen. Well the contraption that was supposed to keep whoever was blowing the bubbles less messy than the normal bubble containers was not working very well. We finally got it to work but by that time she was more interested in everything else than trying to pop the bubbles.

 

 

While we were trying to get the bubbles to work Tess walked over to where Clayton was leaning against the pathfinder and was watching what he was doing and tried to imitate him and started to lean against the car also.

That night Tess and one of the doors had a run in and my baby girl had her first black eye. Tess likes to have all the doors shut, and she was moving a door stopper so she could close the door, well when she turned around the door knob her right in the eye. It looked pretty bad but I think she was pretty good after some ice and some TLC.

On Sunday we ventured out to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, I had heard about how this museum has a children’s section that was for children under 5. I thought that was pretty interesting as most children’s museums are set up for older kids. They were running a deal during the summer because they had just opened that all military and first responders got in for free. Most places provide military discounts but rarely do places provide a discount for first responders. We walked through the other exhibits starting from the top and worked our way down. Mona and I did as much as Tess could take and when she was done we went down to the children’s portion and Kevin and Clayton met us down there when they were done with the rest of the museum.

The first thing that Tess saw was this area that had these fake flowers and I think the idea was that you could create bouquets or give your parents a flower or two. Well Tess decided that she needed all the flowers that were set out. There were quite a few flowers and the museum was busy so there were other kids trying to play also. She gave a couple mean looks as she was gathering her flowers and giving them all to her Nana. When she was done I tried to distract her with the grocery store.

We went shopping but she soon realized that her Nana had put all her flowers back, and that was unacceptable. Tess realized that the good thing about going to the grocery store was she had a basket to put all her flowers in. She started to gather her flowers again and this time she put them in her basket so that Nana couldn’t put them back, well as she was gathering I was trying to put some back so that other kids could play with the flowers. Tess caught me trying to put the flowers back and tried to hold all the flowers herself and even tried to steal flowers out of other kid’s hands. At that point I realized it was time to venture away from the flowers and try something different in a place we could not see the flowers at all.

So after we were finished with the flowers we went camping and ate some steaks and corn and sat by the fire. We played with boats in the water, we tried to build some things on the roads but mostly cleaned up the mess left by others. We went over bridges, through tunnels and down slides. And finally she had to color a little bit. She was pretty much all over the place and had a blast. I will say that this children’s area is designed with the younger crowd in mind.

Outside the museum they have a leap frog forest which includes a water feature. Tess had a fun time climbing on the frogs and playing around them on turf. The smaller frogs were perfect size for her to climb and I was able to get a pretty good shot of a smile with her sitting next to one of the big ones.

We tried to take a family picture next to one of the big frogs but we had mentioned that she could play in the water after the picture and that was our big mistake. Once she saw the water and knew she was going to be able to play in it she was over taking a picture. It’s a good picture of Clayton and I and you can see all the thoughts running through Tess’s mind of what she is going to do once she gets in the water. We gave up on the picture and took her shoes off and just let her play in the water.

Clayton’s Soccer tournament was Monday and Tuesday. We got up bright and early and headed to the fields both days. I apparently was better at taking pictures on the first day of the tournament and don’t have really any pictures from the second day. Tess played with Jacob throughout the morning and played with her iPad on her own.

The team did pretty well but Clayton and Mike didn’t like the ref from the first game and had a slight disagreement that led to them both not being able to play in the second game. This did not go over well but Clayton eventually calmed down and didn’t have any other instances the rest of the tournament. The guys ended up playing the same team they played in the first game for third place and we were all happy when they won. The other team provided some entertainment during halftime when their goalie and coach got into a fight and the goalie left. It was a tight game but in the end the better team won.

The tournament was played in the morning and we wouldn’t get back to the house till about 1 or 2 so Tess would miss her nap. On the second day we tried to take a nap in the car but she was not having it, she wanted to be out where the action was. On the way home she usually crashed at some point and would sleep till we pulled into the driveway. We would then put her down and she would sleep for maybe another 30-45 minutes if we were lucky. She was pretty tired by the end of the day.

Caroline and Casey came over to play in the backyard one day and I think the girls did pretty well. It was still hard to get a picture with both of them in it because they just won’t sit still or play with each other. Eventually they will have a lot of fun playing with each other when we go to Dallas to visit.

The last Friday we were there we went to Bedford Splash which is a small little waterpark geared for kids. Tess loved it, we started in the little kid area where there is a small slide and it’s pretty shallow so she can walk around. One of us would walk up the steps and help her go down the slide and then she would wait at the bottom for us to slide down. There were some jets that shot water up that she played with for a little while.

Our biggest mistake was introducing her to the bigger slides, which she loved. There were two slides an orange and a yellow slide. She loved the yellow slide but would settle for the orange one. Every time she landed at the bottom she would say more, she just loved going down the slides. It was probably one of the most crowded places in the park, so I guess most kids loved going down these slides. There was also a small lazy river and a bigger pool that had one bigger ride that both Clayton and Kevin went on. Overall it’s a nice park and I think Tess will enjoy it over the years.

The girls even were able to work in a girl’s night out to Painting with a Twist and we had our annual Harris Poker night. We had a lot of fun in Dallas but we needed a vacation to recover from our vacation.

First Part of July

July was a really busy month for us, every weekend we were doing something. I had a long an extra-long weekend for the 4^th and Clayton and I decided to paint the yellow room. We have been saying that we needed to paint the yellow room for a really long time but have never gotten around to doing it, well I had an extra day off from work and Tess was going to be in daycare so we spent the time painting over the awfully bright yellow in our guestroom and making it a more neutral color. It only took us 5 years but we have now painted every room in our house.

On the 4^th Clayton was playing in a Soccer tournament so we got up bright and early and headed down to the Dynamo complex to watch Daddy play some keeper. The weather was pretty nice and Tess got to wear her new 4^th of July shirt. She was pretty cute that day.

 

Before the game started Tess and Jacob were playing soccer on the field. I was trying to get Tess to run off some of her energy so she wouldn’t be so restless during her daddy’s games. She did pretty well, she mainly ran after Jacob and watched him play with the ball and shoot on goal. But she kept laughing so I knew she was having a good time.

When she was playing by herself she kept picking up the ball and carrying it and I tried to tell her that was supposed to put it on the ground and it kick it. I guess it is pretty hard to teach her one thing when all she sees is her daddy touching the ball with his hands. This might be a problem down the road when we try to put her in soccer, but for now I am just letting her practice her goalie skills.

During the games she would get restless and not want to sit still so that’s when I would pull out the iPad and she would play for a bit. Jacob saw the iPad and wanted to play also. They played for a while together but then she wouldn’t do something that Jacob wanted her too and he would get upset. I would have to remind him that he is six and she is two. So after a while the iPad disappeared.

Tess doesn’t really like excess noise, and she gets a little upset when we would cheer for a goal. I thought it was funny so I took a picture of her telling me to stop it mommy. She does this all the time, she tells us to stop singing, she tells the dogs to stop barking, anything that’s out of the ordinary she tells whoever or whatever is making the noise to stop it

 

The next week the Braun kids got together to paint my parents media room. We went with an Astros theme, and it turned out to be pretty cool. We all got their pretty early on Saturday and started to paint right away. We painted the walls Astros dark blue, have a thin line of orange at the bottom and orange shelves and painted a white screen. A fathead was later put in and old seats from the astrodome were also cleaned up and put in also. It’s actually pretty cool.

While we were painting Tess was hanging out with Oma. She found probably the only Mickey shirt in the house and insisted that she put it on, it was pretty big on her but she never wanted to take it off. We eventually got her to take it off and she had to tell her Mickey shirt bye bye but it was pretty funny seeing her in such a big shirt.

 

Next stop Dallas.

June



June was pretty busy for us. We went to a couple Astros games with my parents. Tess found Mickey at the game and kept wanting to go back and see him. She is pretty enamored with Mickey right now. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse pretty much rules our TV when Tess is awake. We are in the process of trying to branch out.

Tess has full range of our house; she goes just about anywhere she wants to go. We moved Tess to a bigger car seat, and she found her old car seat in the dining room and decided to play in it. She had the best time playing in her old seat and as you can see from the picture she has completely out grown it.

 

Most mornings we play in the family room and watch TV till its nap time. She either plays with her iPad, puzzles, colors, or draws. Sometimes she does this with clothes or sometimes just a diaper.

 

This is the most time we spend at home because once she gets up from her nap we are usually out running errands or out spending time as a family.

One Saturday while Clayton was working, Tess and I ate McDonalds and then ran some errands. She is starting to dance and wiggle. It is pretty much the cutest thing ever.

We bought Tess a new Towel because she has so much hair now that she baby towels don’t soak up the water anymore. We found a Minnie Mouse one and she loves it. She carries it around with her even when it’s not bath time. She loves anything Mickey or Minnie related.

 

We went to Chick fil a one evening and I turned in her prize for an Ice Cream. She loves her Ice Cream just about as much as her Daddy. I think her and I were supposed to share it, I don’t think I got much. This is the story of my life right now, we are supposed to share and I end up having to buy my own.

 

 

Tess also celebrated her 2^nd birthday this month. She had to go and see the doctor that morning so before we stopped and got a special donut. She ate more of my donut holes and only ate the sprinkles off of her donut. We went to the doctor and she is still in the 25 percentile. We still have a small baby which is fine with us. She had to get one shot and got to pick out one sticker. We picked out some cookies to bring to Daycare and they sang Happy Birthday to her. We ate dinner with my family later that evening at Salt Grass. I think she had a pretty good 2^nd Birthday

 

 Tess was wearing one of Clayton’s hats and I wanted to take a picture of her. She has started to have some attitude about certain things and having her picture taken is one of those things. I wanted her picture taken so I showed her how to take her own picture and she took her very first selfie. I have to admit she took a good picture the first time, usually you have to take multiple shots to get a good one.

 

Roscoe came to visit us for the last weekend in June. Matt wet to visit a friend in Michigan and Tess was pretty excited to have another puppy stay with us. Roscoe is smaller than our puppies she he is just Tess’s size.  Roscoe is not use to all the madness of having a two year old so I think he was glad to go home at the end of the weekend.

 That same weekend Clayton was working a booth selling cozies at the Gay Pride Festival. It was hot a rainy so we didn’t stay long and Roscoe doesn’t like people so he was barking at everyone. We got there and walked around to find the booth, and then when we got there went to get some food and then left because it started raining. I had to run to the car when it started pouring while Diana held Tess and Lori held Roscoe. I dropped Diana and Lori off at the Astros game and Tess and I went home. Clayton said they had a pretty good turn out and almost sold out of cozies.

June was pretty busy for us. The summer only gets busier from here, next in July is Painting and a July 4^th Tournament and Vacation in Dallas.

It’s Been A While….

It’s been a while since my last post so this is going to be a long one. We have been busy and Tess usually keeps us busy. Back in the beginning of February the kids helped my parents pack up some of the non-necessity items in the house into a POD. My parents were putting the house on the market and needed to clean up some of the clutter they had acquired throughout the 20 years of living there. Tess went to Dallas for the weekend and we got a couple pictures of her playing with magnets on the fridge, she was also wearing an apron as she was helping nana out in the kitchen. I don’t know how much help she really was but I guess that’s why the magnets were brought out, a good distraction.

One day while Clayton was working the Braun girls went shopping at the outlet mall and Oma had to get Tess and outfit for every holiday coming up. Valentine’s Day, St, Patrick’s Day, and Easter were covered. It is hard to get a picture of Tess sitting still and looking at the camera, so these are the best shots of her holiday outfits so far this year.

 Tess has started to be a big help around the house, when she wants to be. If she thinks someone is doing something that she thinks she wants to do she will “help out”. One morning she noticed daddy was unloading the dishwasher and she needed to help. Later on when she realizes this job is not so awesome I don’t think she will be so eager to help out.

 

 

Clayton still plays indoor soccer during the year except for the summer when they get ready for the summer Olympics. We have been able to bring Tess to a couple of his early games this past season and at first she was a little unsure of the facility but she warmed up and enjoyed watching her daddy play and even ventured out and played with some of the other kids as well. She was a little tired the next day but she did well at the games and was able to watch her daddy do something he loves to do.

Tess is growing up a little too fast for me, in late February her hair was long enough for her first official ponytail. Her hair is so curly that if it was straight it would have been long enough a while ago but because of the curls it has to be longer. I don’t know when the next time we will get her hair cut, I had long hair growing up so I think we will keep the trend till it gets too long or she lets me know she wants it cut.

 

No matter if Clayton is at work or not I am the one that usually wakes up with Tess in the morning, it gives us some time in the morning to hangout, watch cartoons and be silly. I love that time with her. She loves to take pictures and she has gone through multiple phases where she is independent and then she wants to cuddle, sometimes in the same day. There was one weekend day, I think Clayton was at work and Tess and I were hanging out and she wanted to cuddle early on in the morning and then later on she has her purse with her and telling me bye. Every day with her is a new experience and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

 

 

 

Towards the end of spring break Mona and Kevin came down from Dallas to spend some time with little bit. Kevin turned the double nickel and I made him some cupcakes for the occasion. He was too quick the first time and blew out the candles before we could take any pictures. We relit the candles and made sure to get some action shots the second time. While they were in town we decided to go to Battleship Texas. We had planned on going on Saturday but there was rain in the forecast. That weekend there was a big celebration for the centennial celebration; the ship was commissioned in 1914 and is the last remaining dreadnought-style of battleship to serve in both World Wars. We went on Friday and it wasn’t too busy but it was really windy. Parts of the ship were not able to be seen because they were under construction and being repaired. We had the stroller for Tess so Clayton and his Dad toured more of the ship then Mona and I did. All in all it was a good day trip; we will probably go again when Tess is bigger. On our way back from the ship we stopped at a Dairy Queen and they had a ball pit. Tess took a quick dive into the pit and soon realized a ball pit is a lot like quick sand, the more you move the more you sink. Before we knew it all we could see was her head and a foot. She enjoyed it though; we had to use ice cream to get her out.

My brother rescued one of the cutest puppies around. He is I guess a toy schnauzer because he can fit under Toby and is basically full grown. Matt had to go out of town for the weekend so we dog sat. Roscoe and I got along just fine; he is still too much of a puppy for Clayton. In the evenings the dogs usually hang out with me on the couch, while Roscoe was at our house I had another dog hanging out with me.   

 We went to an indoor bounce house called Bouncing Bears for a friend’s daughter’s birthday party and Tess loved it there. She is still little and one of us has to do most of the activities with her but she doesn’t care. She laughed so hard and came home so exhausted that it was well worth it.

 

 

The next weekend we went up to Dallas for another birthday party. Tess had a lot of fun playing with family. We looked out in the yard and I noticed her leaning on the chair looking all smooth talking to Landon, she will eventually realize he is her cousin. They had a lot of fun running around the back yard until the big kids came out and stole the ball and started playing amongst themselves. Later that night I was looking for Toby and right about the time I was getting a little worried he popped his head up from under the blanket. He had buried himself under the blanket and was snug as a bug in a rug. O Toby…

 

 



 

When Daddy does eventually get up in the mornings Tess likes to play with him because he is usually a little more fun than mommy. This morning he was playing blocks with Tess and they built themselves a little tower until Tess knocked it down. She looks so big in this video, I think it was right around this moment that I realized, I have a toddler.

 

 

We have been waiting for the time that our little one would climb out of her crib; she had been showing some signs of climbing on things. Well one night she was acting out at dinner and she had to go to timeout in her crib, I put her in her crib and explained to her that she needed to think about how she was acting, fully expecting her to completely understand what I meant. As Clayton and I were finishing up our dinner we realized her cries were getting louder and louder. I went and got the monitor and low and behold our daughter was no longer in her crib, she had climbed out. Well she had I guess landed on her face and had the rug burn to prove it. We then started the long process of trying to find her converter kit which would convert her crib to a toddler bed, that process turned into us buying her a toddler bed.

 When Clayton and I bought our house we knew that eventually we would redo the kitchen, well that time has come. We bit the bullet and replaced the countertops and backsplash. We had really good cabinets but the countertop and backsplash did not work well with the color that was originally selected. We shopped around and went with a smaller place that we had bought our bathroom tile from. Since we were only changing the countertops and backsplash it was a pretty quick process. The countertops were installed in one day and the backsplash took an afternoon and the next morning. I hate change but after it was complete I am happy with the end result.

While I get ready for bed I usually take a look at the monitor and see how Tess is doing, this one particular night she reminded me a lot of her daddy. She was completely sprawled out on her back taking up as much room in her crib as possible. Her daddy tries to do this in our bed, there are nights that I will wake up in the middle of the night and I will be sharing my pillow with Clayton. Clayton is usually all over the bed at night, it is sometimes very interesting where he ends up.

  

Tess has always loved her bread. We have tried to keep the bread till she has eaten more of her meal so that she doesn’t fill up on bread and then not want to eat what we are having for dinner. Eventually she will have a love hate relationship with bread as all women do but I will let her find that out on her own and let her enjoy it while she can.

  

We went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse one night when Mona and Kevin were in town and our waitress was really slow. Tess was getting restless so Mona and I took her up to the front and she played on the saddle that is used when you go there for your birthday. She had a good time waiting for Clayton and Kevin to pay the bill.

  

Tess has been around our puppies since the day she was brought home from the hospital. Our two pups have been extra careful around her and Lexi has pretty protective the first couple of months. She is now getting to the age that playing with them is starting to get fun. We will randomly see her pet them, lay on them, or try to play with them. She has been stealing their balls for a while and bringing them back to us to throw but she just started throwing them the balls herself. The dogs tend to look at us because they don’t go very far but they give in eventually and play with her. Eventually she is going to be the only one giving them attention.

 

As Tess is getting older she is having more and more of an opinion. She sometimes likes to pick out her outfits or her shoes or decides she wants to wear her shoes with her jammies. Instead of fighting with her I usually will let her have her way unless the outfit is ridiculous. We will see how long this lasts. So far she is ok in the outfit department, but I am not positive it’s always going to be this easy.

As summer has come so has the rain, my mom bought her a rain coat and the first day it was pouring outside I got the coat out and tried to put it on her, well she was not pumped about putting it on. So I didn’t force it and I opened the front door and she saw the rain and reached back and all of a sudden wanted the coat. She has worn it a couple of times and will probably wear it more throughout the summer.

Speaking of things coming with summer, June bugs, at first Tess didn’t want anything to do with them. Then she started wanting to stomp on anything that looked like a June bug. One morning she saw an acorn and thought it was a June bug and looked at me and was basically asking permission to stomp on it. I basically thought to myself as I am taking this video, o your father would be so proud, and he thought it was hilarious. Thankfully there are no more June Bugs for my princess to stomp.
 

Well my baby is no longer a baby. We finally broke down and bought her a big girl Minnie toddler bed. What breaks my heart the most is the fact that she loves it. She has done great. We have only found her on the floor once and it was after one of the big thunderstorms we had one night. We didn’t even hear her get up; I just looked at the camera in the morning and saw her asleep on the floor. I have to admit now that I don’t have a baby anymore, I officially have a toddler.

  

Well that is my very long but much needed update on our busy life. I will leave you with the most up to date family picture and this will be the last Harris Family Picture in the old Braun Family Home.