Vote for Brendan!

I entered Brendan's picture in a contest to be on the cover of Parent's magazine. One of the pictures I entered was selected to be a finalist in this week's Reader's Choice contest, where the winner wins $250. It's based on votes, so I would realllllly appreciate it if you would go and vote for him! Voting ends December 5th and you can vote once a day until then.

You don't have to register or anything, you just follow this link, click that you want to vote on his picture and it will bring up an ad for a business (mine was a Toyota ad) and you will have to type in a word from the ad (mine was Corolla LE). The word will either be bolded in black or it will say something like "please enter this word into the box below." Easy peasy :)

http://photos.parents.com/american-baby-cover-contest/48/2010/1823

Please be so kind to let me know if the link doesn't work. It is the picture of him sitting and looking up at the camera with a half-smile in front of a blue door from the post from last week. Thanks in advance for helping Brendan's college fund :)

Busy Bee

I'm really busy this week getting ready to host my first Thanksgiving at our house, but I wanted to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving and leave you with a few pictures of the handsomest boy I know from our Christmas photo session last month (pre haircut) :)

What is going on here?
Happy baby!

Hey everyone!

Also, Bobbi made me realize I left something out of my post last week when she commented on last week's blog. We actually HAVE lowered Brendan's crib mattress as low as it will go and he can still stand up very easily. But, he hasn't even begun to attempt to climb out, thank goodness. He's been waking up super early for him this week (like, by 6:00 AM) and although I don't get him out of bed at that point, I can hear him squealing and talking so I don't really get any extra sleep. Add that to sometimes having to bring Shiner out at 2:00 AM and I am a pretty tired Mama! Luckily, Tim won't be working after tomorrow for the rest of the week so I can get some Zzzzzs >:) Just kidding, we usually trade off days so we both get some extra sleep!

Happy Thanksgiving!

New Developments

Ok, I'm just a little late, but better late than never, right?!

We've had some new developments since I last posted. I will mostly just have all the pictures with some blurbs.

Brendan has started standing up in his crib! He had actually started doing this the day before my last weekly post but I forgot to mention it in that post. I think it's super cute and fun butttt he has gotten really bad about playing with his mobile (he figured out how to turn it on by pushing the buttons and change the music) when he's supposed to be going to sleep. I know I should just take it out of his room but it comes in handy in the mornings when I am still in bed or trying to get dressed and he's already woken up because he entertains himself with it. I figured out if I move the actual on and off button to "off" then he can't turn it on with the buttons, so I think I'll do that for naps and then put it to "on" at bedtime so he can play with it when he wakes up in the mornings.
He has started walking reallllly well with his walker! He actually can walk super fast with it and crashes into things and then doesn't know what to do next :) He also has started standing on his own (without holding onto anything) pretty darn well. I'm hoping he'll be walking by his 1 year appointment just because the doctor said he didn't think he would be (haha). He also is crawling really well but still prefers to walk around holding onto my hands.

Look at my cute little Aggie in his warm-up suit!!

We went to Brendan's friend Harrison's first birthday party weekend before last. It was at this place called Abbey's Playground in Grand Prairie. Brendan had a lot of fun and had his first taste of birthday cake. Needless to say, he is his mommy's boy and absolutely LOVED it. He ate an adult size piece and I'm pretty sure he would've eaten more but Tim told me to stop feeding it to him.

Playing in the ball pit with the birthday boy

We also discovered he really likes sliding down little slides. I think we're going to get him a slide/playhouse combo for outside for his birthday. (shhhhh, don't tell!)

He turned 10 months old!! Can you believe it?! Yesterday, it was 50 days until he turns 1!

He's teething big time. He has his two middle bottom teeth, two front top teeth and I believe he's about to get the teeth on each side of the top teeth within the week. He also chews on his hands towards the back of his mouth like he could be working on molars but he won't let me see in his mouth to check. Also, this is the adorable Tigger toy that I was mentioning Ann got for him a couple weeks ago. He loves it - I didn't even put the Tigger next to him for this picture, he had brought it over to where he was sitting!

He has started cruising a lot! He walks along anything he can hold onto and will even reach out and take a BIG step to get to something right across from what he is holding onto (like, when he holds on to the ottoman, he will reach out and grab the couch and walk over to it).

Like I mentioned on Tuesday, we got Shiner, our new Wheaten Terrier, on Monday. He and Brendan are already friends but Tucker doesn't really like him. The only issue we're having so far is him constantly wanting to lick Brendan's face and always trying to eat Tucker's food! He's doing pretty good on sleeping at night as well.

Brendan got his first haircut on Monday! Courtesy of Daddy, it was just a little trim around the sides and back, but still a cut! Here is a before picture - see all that long hair coming over his ears?
Here is one more before picture

Daddy carefully doing the cutting

Watch out for my ears, Daddy!

And the finished product! It's not the best picture to show it off, but I think you can still tell a big difference. It's amazing how even with the little bit of hair we cut off you can tell a difference and I think he looks older.

The only thing I don't have pictures of for the last two weeks is that Tim and I went to Fredericksburg this past weekend for a weekend getaway without Brendan. We left him in Boerne on Friday afternoon with my mom and Nanny and then came back on Sunday mid-morning. We had an awesome time and even met some fun people we hung out with. We definitely missed Brendan and were ready to see him on Sunday but we needed some alone time and a little break from everyday parenting, so it was nice to have the opportunity to do that. Brendan had a wonderful time with his CiCi and his Nanny and that's actually when he started using his walker a lot and standing up for longer on his own.

Oh! One more BIG thing! Brendan started waving and saying "hi" these past few days!!! At first, I wasn't sure if that's what he was doing, but we were leaving a playdate yesterday and one of the little girls was waving 'bye' to him and he started waving back! And he did it again to Tim last night and would wave and say 'hi!' This morning, I thought it sounded like he waved and said "bye" to Tim but I'm not sure yet. Yay for new, exciting things!

Hope everyone has had a great week and has a fun weekend!

Ugh!

I actually did try to do a blog post last week but my camera wouldn't transfer pictures onto my computer for some reason. Then, I never got a chance to try it again.

Now, things are still really busy because we brought Shiner (the new puppy) home yesterday! But, I am going to try really super hard to do a blog post tonight. If not, there WILL be one sometime tomorrow.

Hope y'all have had a great week and a half and sorry for the delay!