Lauren Braddock Havey's Blog

Why oh why does my page look like it has been hacked "this person have moved" Nuh-uh!!! And what can I do about it??!!

I am still here! Just gotten deeep into my new radio hosting thang which has carried me and my co-host partner over to SiriusXM! We started out doing a kids show on a community station playing "kindie rock" and talking about family issues...now we are on satellite radio every Friday morning EARLY getting love advice to truck drivers!  Please tune in when you can--we are getting GREAT guests who are teaching us a thing or two too and we are having a great time!
Visit www.jacieandjeep.com for more info.
I plan to being back here soon in mommy mode to report on my Little Man's past year and his upcoming birthday Tuesday, sniff-sniff...my baby's not a baby anymore!
Hope you are all well bloggy friends!

As I have mentioned before, I recently came on board as co-host/producer at my friend's kindie-rock family radio show "Kids Rock Nashville" and have been having a great time with it. Last Thursday we had the treat of having Grammy nominated hit singer/songwriter (and close family friend) Deborah Allen and my dad, Bobby Braddock (whose praises I have sang before) on the show. Deborah discussed her new children's book, The Loneliest Christmas Tree" (with illustrations by Brooks and Dunn's Kix Brook's daughter Molly) and sang her rollicking "Rockin' Little Christmas". My dad performed his first number one song, Tammy Wynnette classic D-I-V-O-R-C-E (which I got the honors of singing) and he did a funny version of All I Want For Christmas is my Two Front Teeth". We had a blast! And Music Row ran an item about it yesterday, there is also a link to where you can hear the archived version...check it out! :)

http://www.musicrow.com/2011/12/tuesd...

Today we went to a family holiday brunch for Sony Tree Publishing. My dad got a longevity award today for writing with them for 45 years, congratz Grandbobby! It is always a super nice event complete with balloon animals, a photo booth and Santa Claus. Now the Santa Claus element was a minus for us for a while as Little Man was terrified! When he was a little baby, before he knew better (his first and second Christmas) we have pictures of him with Santa. His third Christmas he was starting to get apprehensive and wouldn't sit on his lap but held onto the sleigh instead. BUT the past three years we haven't been able to get him anywhere near the big guy in red! Even a trip to the mall would be met with major anxiety about a chance encounter with Old St. Nick. We would have to beg and promise we wouldn't go anywhere near where he'd be!
So, today at the brunch I was totally taken by surprise when he suddenly decided to go hop on Santa's lap, happy as can be! When Santa asked today what he wanted for Christmas he said "I don't want to tell you because I am a little afraid of you". But then, he did break down and tell him "legos!" Then he asked "are you the real Santa?!" To which, shockingly, Santa was able to provide him with some identification! (He later asked me if it was a fake ID-hahaha!)
I commended him on his bravery today. What a lovely Christmas reunion!

Thank you to my little boys teachers for doing this special surprise. Got it in my mailbox sent from his school a couple of days ago--probably the best gift anyone can get is to hear what others appreciate about you. In fact, I just read about something along those lines that we are going to do for our Thanksgiving dinner this year. Make placemats for each person and have everyone write on them what we are thankful about that person. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Jacie, the founder of the radio show I am now co-hosting, and I interviewed Jill Swenson from Santa's Reindeer Tour on the Kids Rock Nashville show last week. She told us all about the reindeer they have at Strickland Farms in White House, TN 30 minutes from downtown Nashville. When I told Little Man about it he asked if reindeer really fly and then said "wait a minute, bats are the only mammals who can fly!" Then chalked it up to Santa's magic powers being able to make the non-flying mammals fly!
This weekend Jacie and I took our kids to meet the reindeer in person. The kids were in awe and got to have their pictures taken with the reindeer. It was a sweet outing for the kids and a great Christmas card photo op!

Congratulations to my dad, songwriter/producer Bobby Braddock for gettig the 2011 ICON award from BMI. We went to the awards on Tuesday night and it was amazing. Miranda Lambert and The Piston Annies performed his song D-I-V-O-R-C-E, Blake Shelton, "Same Old Song", John Anderson, "Would You Catch A Falling Star" and Vince Gill and Leann Rhimes "He Stopped Loving Her Today". So proud of my daddy and happy to see him get that wonderful recognition! :)

Hope all y'all that celebrate fall had a great Halloween or harvest celebration! Little Man had a great time at a friend's block party and his Harry Potter costume was super-cute! Got an excellent report card that day too, so proud of my little guy!!!

Had a blast with Jacie on our Halloween Kids Rock Nashville show Thursday with our special guest singer/songwriter Aaron Raitiere (in photo). We also premiered "Jeep on the Street", "Jeep" is my nickname from childhood, now radio-name, trying to stay Forever Young-baby! Jeep on the Street is a series of interviews with kids and this weeks question was "why do we celebrate Halloween" and their answers were cute! To hear a recording of the show go to kidsrocknashville.com and follow prompts to Halloween show!

Got kiddos costume finally yesterday, he is officially going to be Harry Potter (he is all about "magic" now and we are in the middle of reading the second HP book). The Daddy will be understated in Elvis sideburns and I believe I will be rockin' a classic witches hat ;) I was also considering getting a t-shirt and writing "Muggle" or "Mudblood" on it to go with my kids costume, but---maybe not. Today we are making jack-o-lantern rice crispy treats for his school party tomorrow. Will post pics later (if they come out good!)

Or gig, or somethin' like that! I am now officially the new co-host of Kids Rock Nashville, along with my friend Jacie who had the fabulous idea and started this very groovy kindie-rock weekly radio show. It is located on 107.1 locally or streaming on radiofreenashville Thursday's from 3:00-5:00. (For radio I will be using my childhood nickname of "Jeep"!) If you miss our live broadcast, you can catch it on the website generally the next day at www.kidsrocknashville.com.
If you get a chance to go check out last weeks show it was very informative and inspiring! It was an anti-bullying show and we had some great guests...the Kids on the Block program came with their puppets, "three dad's on a mission" kindie-rock band Ka*Pop and Rascal Flat's keyboardist, Tim Akers, co-wrote and produced a song that was chosen to be part of a national anti-bullying campaign on Oct 26th! To hear more about it go check out www.kidsrocknashville and follow prompts to the anti-bullying show.
I am excited about this new venture. If anyone has any ideas for possible guests or music of cool kindie-rockers please lay it on me! Peace!