Throne of Thornes

Dixie Lullaby

2012-01-25T19:19:00.002-06:00

When Brendan was a baby, I played music on the iPod for him before bed and would sometimes sing along to the music but never really sang to him on my own. Sometimes, Tim would sing him "Dixie Lullaby" by Pat Green whenever he was trying to put him to sleep. My favorite song with him was "Lullaby" by the Dixie Chicks and I played it a lot on the iPod for him.

When Griffin was born and we started a bedtime routine, I didn't have an iPod in the room with him so I was "forced" to sing. I can never remember all the words to the Dixie Chicks' song, but for some reason I am easily able to remember all of the lyrics to Dixie Lullaby that Tim used to sing. So, it is now part of our routine every night that I read Griffin "Goodnight Moon" and then I turn the light out and rock him and sing Dixie Lullaby while he finishes eating.

Do you have a special song you sing your kids? Or, if you don't have kids, is there a song you think you will want to sing to them when you have kids?

Two Years and Four Months!

2012-01-22T20:14:00.000-06:00

Annnnd, we're back :)

Since we've been gone, Brendan has turned TWO years old and Griffin has turned FOUR months old! We had Brendan's party on January 7th. It was construction themed because he loves construction equipment. He had such a great time. I think he sort of "got" it this year. Here are a few pictures:

On the day of his birthday (the 6th), we put these up while he was napping so when he came out of his room after his nap he had to come through these. He thought that was fun.

Birthday Cake

One of the decorations

Blowing out his candle :) He's a pro at this!

We had his two year appointment on his birthday. We had gotten his shots a couple months before so he didn't have to get any shots on his birthday. He is 36 inches tall and 31.4 pounds. I can't remember head size. He is taller than 9 out of 10 boys his age, heavier than 8.8 out of 10 and I think head size was bigger than 9.5 out of 10. Still has a big head ;) He is happy and healthy and full of mischief! He wants to run everywhere, prefers being outside at all times, loves candy, cheese, juice (watered down), MILK, and Chick-Fil-A. He is sleeping pretty well but has started waking up at 5:45 AM, which is not very fun. Luckily, we are able to turn on Mickey Mouse Club for him and he watches it quietly and plays on his own so we are able to catch a little more sleep when we want to. Our bedroom is right next to the living room so we just leave our door open and can hear any moves he makes. Speaking of, he also loves Mickey Mouse Club, Blues Clues and Dinosaur Train. He's only allowed to watch TV in the morning and right before bed (except sometimes on the weekends we let him watch a little more) but that doesn't stop him from asking for a "show" multiple times throughout the day. He is still really loving school and gets SO excited whenever he gets to go to school. He is such a sweetheart and really just becomes more awesome every day!

Griffin is now four months old and has been developing his own little personality. He seems like he will be our tenderhearted little one and possibly shyer than Brendan is. He is VERY attached to Mama, which can be sweet but also can prove to be difficult when I need to do other things! He is ticklish already and I can just barely touch his rib area and he cracks up. He is the same height as Brendan so far (age-wise) but is a lot thinner than Brendan!

He was sleeping through the night (10-12 hours) starting right after he turned two months old until a little after three months old. Then, he started waking up more again. We realized that he had a dependency on the pacifier already for sleeping - not unlike his brother at the same age - and started waking up sometimes eight times a night for pacifier replacement. He would get the paci and go right back to sleep. Everyone needs better sleep than that, so we made the decision this past week to attempt to take away the pacifier and the swaddle (the doctor said we need to get him off the swaddle) and let him cry-it-out some if necessary. I started with naps on Friday. He is going to sleep at night without any fuss. For some of his naps he will fuss for a few minutes before falling asleep but it is no longer actual crying. Last night, he woke up for 40 minutes fussing (never actually crying) but then went back to sleep on his own and never woke up again before 4:30, which is when he has normally been eating. The first day and a half was rough without the paci because he would get very upset and I could tell that was all he wanted but now he seems to have already forgotten about it. Hopefully soon he won't wake up fussing at all.

He also has torticollis, which basically means his neck muscle is tight on one side so he holds his head to that side. For him, it is the left side. We have been going to physical therapy for the past two months and are now going every other week. The physical therapist said she can already tell a big improvement and so can we. She really wants him to start rolling over because apparently that will help a lot with getting him leveled out. Today he rolled from stomach to back for the first time! We were only able to get him to do it once but both Tim and I were watching and got to see it happen. We cheered and it scared him because loud noises scare him right now and he started crying. Poor Griffin!

At his four month appointment he was 26 inches long (about 88th-90th percentile), 14 pounds (25th percentile) and 16 inch head (65th percentile). His weight dropped from 50th to 25th but the doctor was not concerned because his height percentage also dropped from 97th to 88th-90th. He said when both percentages drop like that it usually signals they are about to have a growth spurt. Hopefully at the next appointment he will be back up. He told us to go ahead and give him some solids but I've determined he's not ready, yet. He acts like he needs to sneeze whenever we try to feed him something and Brendan did the same thing when we first tried to feed him and he wasn't ready. Brendan ended up being ready at about 4.5 months so we will try again at that point with Griffin. I hope to make all of Griffin's food like I did with Brendan.

Here are some new pictures of Griffin:

Four months old!

Griffin was baptized on January 8th at White's Chapel United Methodist Church in Southlake (where Brendan also goes to school). I don't like this picture of me, but he deserves to have some evidence of his baptism :)

Happy boy!

Very excited about all the festivities at Christmas ;) Needless to say, I think next year will be more fun for him.

So that's a LONG general update of what is going on with us. I have a New Year's resolution to start posting once a week at least, so I will hopefully keep that up even though I am starting a little late. As you have probably already noticed, the blog is now public again so I can make sure all family can see it that wants to.

Have a great week!

Excuses, Excuses

2012-01-12T14:56:00.004-06:00

I have tons of excuses for not posting but none of them are good enough for it to have gone on this long! Over the next week, I'm going to re-vamp the blog (background, header, etc.) and make the blog public again so I can ensure all my family/friends who were having trouble are able to read it again and then I will make sure to have SEVERAL new posts to make up for this long time away.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Things have been busy, busy, busy over at the Thorne House!

Side by Side

2011-12-01T08:46:00.001-06:00

I'm SO sorry I didn't post right after and give y'all an update. Everything is good with Griffin now! When we went for his two month appointment last Tuesday, they retook his blood and his counts were all back up to normal. Whew!

My friend, Lindsey, asked me to post pictures of Brendan and Griffin side by side so y'all could see if they look alike. Everyone tells me they think they look just alike and Griffin looks just like Tim. Now, Brendan is more of a mix of us, but he definitely looked like Tim when he was little. Brendan was already chunkier than Griffin at this point, though (Brendan was 12 pounds 15 ounces at his two month, Griffin was 11 pounds 9 ounces).

I can't get the above ones to go side by side. You probably already know but Brendan is on the top and Griffin is on the bottom with the hat.

At Griffin's two month, he was 24 1/4 inches long (97th percentile), 11 pounds 9 ounces (50th percentile) and 15 1/2 inch head circumference (50th percentile). Long baby, just like Brendan! It will be interesting to see if he chunks up or if he stays lean.

He finally started smiling right before we left the hospital! We had been waiting and waiting. He still doesn't smile as easily as Brendan does so I'm not able to get a lot of pictures with him smiling like I was with Brendan. Hopefully that will change. Here's one really cute one I got on my phone:

Hope y'all have a good weekend! I'll try to post next week since this wasn't much of a post. I'm also considering making the blog public again because a lot of people are having trouble logging on to read it....I'll talk more about that later, too.

Hospital Stay

2011-11-21T12:37:00.001-06:00

I intended on posting last week but Griffin was in the hospital Monday-Friday :( It was actually a similar situation to what happened to Brendan when he was around Griffin's age. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can read the post here

Anyway, on Sunday we went to Waco to see family for the day. Griffin seemed kind of fussy the whole day but I didn't think much of it. On our way home, I was sitting in the back seat with the kids and Griffin would be asleep and he would scream out in his sleep like he was in pain. I thought maybe he had gas. When we got home and tried to put him down for the night, he kept screaming out and wouldn't settle down. At about 1:00 AM, I thought he felt warm so I decided to take his temperature. It was 101.8. About 30 minutes later, I took it again and it was 101.4. We decided to give him a little bit of Tylenol. I slept with him on my chest and woke up about 3:00 AM and thought he felt really warm. I thought maybe he was just hot from sleeping on me and didn't take his temperature. At 5:00 AM, I thought he definitely felt much too warm for it just to have been from me, so I took his temperature again. It was 103.1 :( I decided I needed to call the pediatrician's nurse line because I didn't know what to do. She told me I needed to take him to Cook Children's Hospital ER to get checked out.

We got to the ER and, of course, they said they needed to do a spinal tap because he was so young and didn't have any other symptoms besides a fever and a rash they discovered once I got there. He had to have blood and urine drawn and the spinal tap. His white count was low so they decided to admit us to the hospital and to watch the blood, spinal and urine cultures to see if anything grew in them. Something did grow in the urine and blood cultures so we had to stay and wait to see what it was to see if he possibly had a bacterial infection. In the meantime, they did a chest x-ray to check for pneumonia and an ultrasound of his kidneys to check for a urinary tract infection. Both of those came back fine. He continued to run a 103 fever, even after getting medicine and anytime I would touch him he would scream and cry like it hurt :(

The cultures were supposed to be identified on Wednesday, but of course they didn't grow out like they expected and we had to wait until Thursday. The pediatrician on staff told us he thought it was probably a viral infection, not bacterial, and that there was a 5% chance the bacteria that was growing could be a contaminant (which is what happened to Brendan). We found out on Wednesday that it was NOT the common skin contaminant of Staph something or other (whatever to common staph is that we all have on our skin, which is what Brendan's was, so we thought it was less likely that it was going to be a contaminant and we would have to stay in the hospital at least a week.

Well, we found out Thursday morning that it WAS a contaminant, but not something that they could identify where it came from. What was in his urine was also a contaminant. So, there is a FIVE percent chance of it being a contaminant and I've had TWO kids get cultures with contaminants!!! Pretty ridiculous odds, huh?

But, they wanted to keep us another day in the hospital because Griffin had still been running a fever and still had a bad rash on his body. The pediatrician had an infectious diseases doctor come look at Griffin as well. If he didn't get a fever all day Thursday, we would likely get to go home Friday. The ID doctor agreed she thought it was a viral infection of some sort. He didn't get a fever all day Thursday and his white count had gone up in the blood they took Friday morning. We were able to go home on Friday but one of Griffin's levels was still very low (I can't remember the name of the level but it is something in your bone marrow that indicates infection). They like it to be 1500 at least and his was only 270. We are going to our pediatrician tomorrow and he has to have blood drawn again to make sure the number went up. I'm not sure if we will have to be re-admitted or what if it doesn't.

So, it was NOT a fun week. I spent the week at the hospital with Griffin. Tim was with Brendan and we also had my mom and stepdad and my dad and stepmom helping with keeping Brendan throughout the week. It was a crazy, exhausting time. Hopefully his counts will have gone up tomorrow and we won't have anything else to worry about. We also were unable to go to his two month appointment Friday because we didn't get out of the hospital in time.

We have his two month appointment tomorrow now, so I will update tomorrow with his two month pictures, some other pictures, and his stats. Say a little prayer for us that everything is back to normal with him!

Finally! One Month!

2011-10-26T08:11:00.002-05:00

I finally found the camera cord! Sorry for so much delay! Griffin turned one month old on October 16. We had his one month appointment and he weighed 10 pounds (50th percentile), was 22.75 inches long (95th percentile) and his head was 14.75 inches (50th percentile). Brendan was a quarter inch taller and had a quarter inch bigger head at the same age, so that was pretty comparable. But, he was 12 ounces heavier! That probably had to do with the fact that he ate ALL night and Griffin actually gets some sleep :)

The past 5 days, he has consistently slept 4.5 to 5 hours the first stretch of the night and 3-4 the second. It has been great. We did have to get him on Prevacid this week because he is having bad spit up issues and was really fussy after eating. I think it is already helping.

Tim and I went to see the Rangers in the World Series on Saturday. Of course, it's the one day they lost! But, we still had fun.

Brendan has been LOVING school. He enjoys going so muchand hates when he has to leave. Today he's dressing in his Halloween costume - a firefighter - for their Fall Festival. Last month, he and Tim were playing outside and Shiner was running alongside Brendan and knocked him over. Brendan fell onto some rocks along our fence and busted the back of his head open. He had to get staples in his head :( It was so sad and scary but he was a trooper and did great.

Here's some pictures from the past month:

First Bath. He LOVES his baths! Getting undressed for them...not so much.

Supporting the team :)

Brendan loves to hold Griffin's hand when they are next to eachother or in the car.

Sleepyhead

Hanging out in his mamaRoo swing. This is actually what he sleeps in right now because he loves it so much.

One Month!

Oh man, WHAT is that?!

Hanging out in the bouncer, looking at the animals.

Fall Festival in our neighborhood

Playing with his bath bubble machine

Meeting the cow and seeing the Fort Worth Fire Truck at Chick-Fil-A. He loves both of them!

Brendan's Big Brother present from Griffin.

His head with the staples :(

I'll be better about updating this month, if any of y'all are still reading!

Ugh

2011-10-25T12:45:00.001-05:00

If anyone is still reading, now I can't find my camera cord to put pictures on the computer. I WILL find it today and post tonight.

So Sorry!

2011-10-17T11:23:00.000-05:00

I am sorry it's been a month since I have posted! Time has just flown by getting used to have two kids instead of just one :)

Tomorrow is Griffin's one month appointment and I can't find my camera right now, so I will post tomorrow with his current stats and with new pictures! I hope everyone has been doing great and I can't wait to update y'all!

He's Here!

2011-09-17T11:15:00.001-05:00

I'll write a more detailed story later, but Griffin Dunning Thorne was born yesterday (September 16) at 9:02 AM. He weighed 7 lbs, 6 oz and was 20.5 inches long. He has a good amount of dark hair and is a good eater already :)

The doctor broke my water at 7:15, so it was VERY quick and I had the epidural for about 5 minutes before he was born. Not fun! But he's great and Brendan lovesss him, so far!

Tomorrow, Tomorrow

2011-09-15T17:29:00.003-05:00

Looks like Griffin will be making his big arrival TOMORROW! I called the doctor today because he seemed like he had been moving less than normal the past few days. At first, I chalked it up to the fact that maybe I was about to go into labor but since I still wasn't in labor this morning, I decided to call and let them know. Of course, after I called and on my way there, he started moving a lot more! But, anyway, they had me come in for a sonogram and to get checked out just in case.

The sonogram looked good and everything was normal with him. They estimated him at 7 pounds. But, when they took my blood pressure it was high and it's never been high the rest of the pregnancy. The doctor checked me again and I have progressed to 4 cm over the past three days and he said my water was bulging.

Since I felt like he had been moving less lately and, mostly, because of how progressed I was and my high blood pressure, he decided to go ahead and have me check-in to the hospital at 6:00 AM tomorrow (Friday) morning to get induced. Because I am already so far progressed and because of how fast my labor was with Brendan, he thinks we will have the baby by lunchtime :)

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers for everything to go smoothly and quickly. Brendan was born at 38 weeks, 3 days and Griffin will be born at 38 weeks, 1 day.

I'll post updates if I can and post a picture when he's born. Hope y'all have a great weekend!

Still here!

2011-09-12T21:39:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile! Things have been pretty busy around here.

As of today, I am 37 weeks, 4 days pregnant. Here is my picture from Thursday at exactly 37 weeks:

I have started going to the doctor every week and he has been checking me for progress the last 3 weeks. The last two weeks, I have been 1 cm and about 1.5 cm dilated and 60% effaced last week. I went today, and I am a "good" 3 cm, 80% effaced and baby is at a 0 station! When I was about this same amount with Brendan (3 cm/70% effaced), I went to the doctor on a Monday and went into labor Wednesday morning at 4:00 AM. The doctor said he wouldn't be surprised if I had the baby tomorrow. Of course, I could walk around like this for another week, but if history repeats itself, it will be within the next couple days! Ah! I am starting to get nervous :)

I got all the weekly cleaning done today so I would know everything was done if I do go into labor. Tim is going to work from home this week so he will be close by if I go into labor during the day. I have a friend lined up to keep Brendan or to pick him up from Mother's Day Out if I go into labor while he's there. My bag is all packed for the hospital and the carseat is installed. I think we are ready.

In other news, we bought Brendan a pool for the backyard because our neighborhood pool has already closed for the season. The first day, he was less than impressed with the pool and just wanted to play with the water hose. When I tried to take it away so he would actually get in the pool I just spent forever blowing up and filling with water, he freaked out and threw a fit and wouldn't get in it.

But, of course, after his nap, he was happy to get into it when he had clothes on and a regular diaper rather than the swim diaper I had him in earlier!

Last weekend, he was more "into" it but still wanted to play with the hose a lot of the time.

This grass needs some water!

I also like to sit and have the water spray onto me...

He is quite the waterbaby, though, when we are at the big pool and he is at his swim lessons.

Another big thing, Brendan started Mother's Day Out the last week of August! He goes on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM, but had Labor Day off. He absolutely LOVES it. Instead of crying when I drop him off, he happily walks into the classroom without even looking back at me and then throws a fit and cries whenever I pick him up. It makes me feel very loved.

Here he is on the first day before we left.

Getting ready to walk into school with his backpack. He loves his backpack and sometimes even just wears it around the house when it's not a school day. He also happily proclaims "SCHOOL!" whenever I tell him he has school or ask if he wants to go.

Walking in the first day

The next two were taken by his teachers. They have a shutterfly site where they post pictures from the week so the parents can see what the kids are up to. They say he is always happy at school and loves, loves, loves playing outside (big surprise!). Today, when I went to pick him up, he screamed his scream he does when he doesn't want to do something because he didn't want to leave. The teachers go "what was that?! He's never done that before." Yeah, I'm pretty sure he does that at least 4 times a day at home. I'm glad to know he's behaving himself there :)

I was a little worried about him napping because he would be napping on a napmat for the first time and around the 7 other kids in his class. Luckily, he has had no problem whatsoever going to sleep and sleeping the whole 2 hours of naptime. I think they wear him out!

This month, he is learning the number 1 and the color "red." They are doing a theme of Apples and Fall on the Farm so they also sing Old MacDonald and Farmer in the Dell a lot. I also go to music class with him on Wednesdays at school from 9:05 to 9:25 where we do a lot of signing and dancing. He wasn't too sure about it the first time, but last week he really enjoyed it.

I don't have pictures, yet, but four of my friends threw me a surprise "Sprinkle" to celebrate baby Griffin's upcoming arrival on August 27. I was COMPLETELY surprised about it and had a great time. It was at Brio Italian Restaurant in Southlake and there was family and a few local friends there. It was wonderful to spend some time with everyone and eat a delicious lunch. We also got some adorable clothes and the last of our needed necessities for Griffin. I'll post some pictures when I get them.

I guess that's about all! Hope y'all have a great week and I'll keep you updated on Griffin's arrival :)

Mish Mash

2011-08-22T11:18:00.002-05:00

I didn't realize how horrible I have been at taking pictures lately! Because of that, there are only a few pictures in this post :( I have to make myself get better or poor Brendan isn't going to have any pictures of his second year of life!

We've been busy getting ready for baby to arrive and enjoying the last part of summer before Brendan starts Mother's Day Out next Monday. He will be going two days a week - Monday and Wednesday - from 9 AM to 2 PM. I'm really excited for him to get to experience it and I think he will also learn a ton.

He has started saying things are "cool" now :) I thought he was saying "two" at first, but then I realized that wasn't it and listened a little harder and said are you saying "cool?" and he repeated it to me the same way. It's very cute. He will bring me his race cars and say "cooool!" or point at things when we are out and say it.

He also loves to say "pool" everytime we pass the pool area in our neighborhood and has become quite the water baby! He finished his first session of swim lessons last week. He can go underwater for 5 to 6 seconds and independently swim that amount of time through the water (independent swimming is more like gliding with no one holding onto him right now). Just in the past week or so, he's finally started kicking his legs. When Tim is giving him a bath at night, he will lie on his stomach in the tub and move his arms and kick his legs while he is swimming :) He starts the second session (Waterbabies 2) tomorrow night with Tim. Tim is doing it with him since I will be having the baby in the middle of the session (did I already mention that in my last post?). His friend/girlfriend, Kinley, is also doing the lessons again with him.

CiCi (my mom) gave him a rocking horse back at Christmas. He was scared of it at first, then he liked being on it for a second, then he liked it but couldn't get on/off by himself. Now, he can get on and off by himself and pull the horse's ears on his own to make it sing or say things. He lovesss riding it and it's very cute when he does.

By the way, he can also say all his grandparent's names now whenever we ask him to :) Some of them are clearer than others, but he attempts to say all of them. He also tries to repeat to us any words we say to him.

He was VERY grumpy when he woke up from his nap last week, even though he slept for 2 hours and 25 minutes. This was the result whenever he was eating his snack:

I've figured out he has to be left alone in his room for a little while whenever he wakes up for the morning or from a nap. He usually immediately gets out of bed when he wakes up and goes to his door, so I always thought he wanted to get out right away but, when I would open the door, he would run away from it and scream/squeal and lie on the ground like he wanted me to leave him alone. Now, I don't even go open the door unless he cries. I just leave him in there and then he is able to open the door when he wants to come out. This usually results in him being much happier. I can move our video monitor camera to the door so I can see what he's doing whenever he's over by the door. The other day after he woke up from a long nap, he spent 20 minutes laying there just sticking his hands under the door or rolling around. This is a picture I took of the monitor:
Silly boy :)

This Thursday, I will be 35 weeks pregnant! That means I will have 35 days until my due date! I have an appointment on Monday, August 29, and he is going to start checking me for progress and I will be going every week from then on for appointments. I have gained 31 pounds as of my appointment last Tuesday. I will surely gain over 35, but I'm hoping not to gain more than about 40 because I immediately lost 30 with Brendan and, if it goes the same with Griffin, that will only give me 10 pounds to lose - which would be much nicer than the 30 I still had to lose with Brendan! I am starting to swell now and am having trouble getting my wedding rings on/off, but my feet haven't really swelled, yet. The doctor said most of what I gain from here on will be water-weight. I am still hoping I won't quite make it to the September 29 due date since I had Brendan 11 days early. Most people I ask in the family seem to think it will be around 2 weeks early. It is SOOO hot that it has just made me very "done" with the pregnancy sooner than I was with Brendan :)

Here's a 34 week belly picture:

Next post, I'll try to remember to do a comparison of being pregnant now vs. being pregnant with Brendan and I'll try to have more pictures! Hope everyone had a great weekend!

19 Months

2011-08-08T06:01:00.005-05:00

Hi, everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Time has just started to get away from me :)

Brendan turned 19 months this past Saturday. He had his 18 month appointment on July 14. He is 99th percentile on height (I believe it was 35 inches), 80th percentile on weight (29.4 pounds) and 92nd percentile on head size (I can't remember this...maybe 19 3/4 inches). His weight has fallen off a little, I think because he's gotten SO picky about eating and seems to hardly want to eat much of anything anymore, but the doctor said he doesn't really expect it to fall off anymore than that because of the way Brendan's body type looks. He thinks he will probably stay a pretty big boy. He is very healthy and on-track in all his milestones.

We've just been hanging out around here, trying to stay a little cool in these horrendous temperatures! I swore I wouldn't complain about the heat after we had such a freezing winter, but being 30+ weeks pregnant in 110 degree temperatures is just terrible. I feel like I am sweating constantly.

The heat has NOT kept Brendan from wanting to go outside. Sometimes, I think he doesn't even notice it. We have still been doing swimming lessons every Monday and plan to sign him up for the Fall/Winter Session that starts in a few weeks. We finish summer and then the fall starts the next week. He can go underwater for 5 seconds now and can "glide" underwater on his own, if he gets a push from me or the teacher. He still won't kick his legs to swim around, but other than that is doing everything he's supposed to. Tim will be doing the next session with him since I will be having Griffin in the middle of it.

This picture is out of order, but we played in a little pool in the backyard the other day. Brendan had lots of fun - mostly with Daddy spraying him with the hose. We've also gone to our neighborhood pool a few times and he loves it this summer. He really likes the splash pad area a lot, which isn't too fun for me because I end up getting a lot wetter than I want to and have to go up and down stairs :) It has some slides he likes to go down. He also likes the baby pool and we have a pool that has two big slides that he really enjoys going down when Tim is with us. I don't attempt that on my own.

We also went to a playdate in mid-July at Nash Farms in Grapevine. It's a historic farm and house that they open every once in awhile for kids to come play at and tour. Brendan's favorite thing was the tables with the old metal toy tractors on them. We spent most of the time there. We also went on a tractor ride around the grounds of the farm and saw a cow.
We took Brendan to see his first movie in July! We saw Winnie the Pooh. He was very scared of the previews, which were extremely loud and, in my opinion, too violent for the movie we were seeing. I think if the movie is rated "G," the movies they preview should be rated "G" as well. I was worried we wouldn't make it through any of the movie with the way he reacted to the previews, but luckily the movie was much quieter. He sat and watched all but about the last 15 minutes and then he just stood in front of us or walked back and forth in front of us and ate snacks. He still doesn't really watch TV except I occasionally put on Dinosaur Train or Super Why on PBS and he enjoys those a lot. His friend, Benjamin, and Ben's parents met us for the movie and we went to lunch at Cheesecake Factory afterwards.
Here are some more pictures of when we played outside in the pool. Like I said, getting sprayed with the hose (and drinking out of it!) were his favorite things.

Brendan has also discovered putting his head in Shiner's big water bucket outside. I try to make sure I put it on top of the grill so he doesn't get into it, but sometimes I forget or I feel bad for Shiner not being able to drink out of it so I keep it down. Pretty gross that he is practically drinking out of the same bucket as the dog, but what can you do? This is what hairdo results whenever he does it:
Hahaha, it cracks me up!

Brendan LOVES his Daddy and wants to be just like him. He tries to walk in his shoes a lot.
And this is what it looks like now if Brendan comes up and puts his arms around my legs and looks up at me:

Speaking of that, I am 32 weeks pregnant as of Thursday. Here is the 32 week belly picture:
Griffin moves a TON throughout the day and also has the hiccups about 3 times per day (I do not like the hiccups!). He weighs about 4 pounds now and is about 16 inches long. We had an ultrasound a few weeks ago and he was 3.2 pounds, which was right at the normal size for the number of weeks I was at the time. His head is very low already so we weren't able to get any good profile pictures of him :( His heartbeat is consistently around 155 bpm when we check it at the doctor. I have gained 26 pounds as of my appointment last Tuesday, which I am very happy with since I know at this point I won't gain anywhere near the 60 I gained with Brendan. It has been another uneventful pregnancy, which is great.

Hope everyone has been doing well and had a great weekend!

Kiawah

2011-07-18T13:07:00.005-05:00

Sorry for the long time between posting! Brendan had his 18 month appointment last week and I had my birthday, but I'll save those for another post. From July 2-9 we were in Kiawah, South Carolina with my dad, Nancy, Alex, Emily and Caroline. It was an awesome vacation! I would highly recommend going there if you enjoy the beach and/or golfing.

On the way from the airport in Charleston to Kiawah, we stopped at this place called Angel Oak that was recommended by Nancy. It's this giant 300-400 year old oak tree. I forgot to stick in a picture of the tree itself, but here's a couple of pictures of Brendan with us.

I'm not sure why this is kind of blurry. Of course, Brendan never looks at the camera :)
Fourth of July in Kiawah, playing at the park after watching a little parade.
This picture looks like he is hating the water, but he loved it again just like he did in Destin. The only difference this trip was that he also liked playing in the sand, so he didn't spend quite as much time in the water.
Building a sandcastle with Lolli and Caroline.
Chasing a seagull. Look at the bird, Mommy!
Walking to the water with Daddy and Pops.
Our footprint on each side of Brendan's. Tim on the left, me on the right.
Building sandcastles with Emily and Caroline....Or maybe just knocking their's down...That's what he liked to do the best!
Whenever he was ready to leave the beach, he would either run up the dunes or he would start walking over to the boardwalk that you use to get on the beach. So, it was easy to tell when he was done.
I just think this picture is hilarious. He was spinning around in circles and this was at the end of the spin :)
Lounging in the pool Daddy and Alex dug for him.
Playing in the sand.
Thorne family :) Hard to read the first names.
Family picture on the last day.
We had a really great time and hopefully, we will get to go back again someday because we loved it. Thanks for taking us, Dad and Nancy!

I'll post either tomorrow or at the end of the week. I'm going to Crockett on Wednesday until Friday or Saturday, so if I don't post tomorrow, it will be Sunday. We have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and are getting an ultrasound to see how Griffin is growing, so I'll have some ultrasound pictures as well as regular pictures of Brendan and us for the next post :)

Summer Time

2011-06-22T11:33:00.008-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I haven't really been in the mood to blog lately!

Before we went to Destin, we got Brendan's hair cut. He wouldn't cooperate very well for a picture, but here's one with the new 'do.

We went to Destin June 7-11. Brendan LOVED the ocean and never wanted to leave it. He wasn't all that into the sand. He didn't dislike it, just wasn't really interested. He wanted to be in the water as much as possible.

Hi, CiCi!
Brendan and CiCi
Walking on the beach, likely headed toward the water
Hmmm..the sand here is wet from the water...
Brendan loves his Papa so, so, so much. He pretty much thinks he is the funniest guy of all time. I have a very cute video of him laughing at Papa that I have to figure out how to post. Here is one of the pictures Tim took of Brendan out on the balcony with Papa when he was laughing at him.
Sorry I don't have more pictures of the trip. My mom took most of the pictures and I haven't gotten any of them from her, yet. I will post some more when I get them.

Last week, we went to a splash playdate at Brendan's friend, Kinley's, house. He had tons of fun because he loves the water now.

Awesome splash pad to play in
Taking a dip in the pool. Laughing about getting his face wet.
Splashing in the water!
Brendan has finally discovered how to play peekaboo and loves to play with us. The other day, he was using one of my dresses to cover his face and play. He ended up getting tangled up inside the dress.
Trying to help him get out.
Where's Brendan?
Help me, Mommy and Daddy!
Also last week, we had our last Little Gym class. We decided not to sign up again for the rest of the summer because, after being in it for two "semesters," I think Brendan was starting to get bored with it. He liked playing but he usually wouldn't participate in the mat activities and lots of times would just sit and watch everyone doing things instead of participating. We are considering signing up again in the Fall so that he has an activity he can do with just Tim or me one on one to give him some alone time with us, but we haven't decided for sure.

He is also taking swim lessons, which I think I mentioned, and he's doing great! He doesn't get upset about going under water at all. This week, the teacher had them "swim" underwater to us (her holding them about 3 feet away from us and swimming them to us) so they were underwater for about 3 seconds. He didn't get upset at all. I think it is a success. We will likely sign him up again for those in the Fall but that is something Tim will have to go to with him since I won't be able to get in the pool for 6 weeks or so after the baby is born.

Back to Little Gym....Brendan does loveee the parachute and enjoys riding on it.
I don't know what this picture is haha...I accidentally picked this one instead of one of him climbing some stairs but it's too difficult for me to switch it out!
Getting his medal for completing the class
Look what I got, Mommy!
And last, but not least, here is the 25 week belly picture (with the addition of Brendan's hand):
I will be 26 weeks tomorrow and today officially marks 99 days until my due date - double digits! Everything has been going smoothly. As of my last appointment a little over 3 weeks ago, I've gained 12 pounds. I have another appointment on Monday to do my glucose test to check for gestational diabetes. I think I will have gained 3 or 4 more pounds at that appointment. I have been getting more aches and pains and feeling very tired, but nothing too bad.

Hope everyone has had a good week so far!

Water Play and "Summer" Time

2011-05-31T19:33:00.003-05:00

I'll start with this past weekend. First, we went to Crockett for my cousin, Abby's, graduation from high school and to visit. Then, Saturday, we went to Waco for a visit with Lolli, Pops and crew. Sunday, we came home. Brendan (and us!) had SUCH a great time visiting all the family and playing outside and swimming.

Yesterday, Brendan had his second swim lesson. Overall, he acts pretty unimpressed with the whole thing while we're there. They are 30 minutes for 13 weeks. This week, we got to do the slide and he really liked that, but they only got to do it once. The teacher told us we could dunk them underwater for the first time this week. Like, when they "jump" off the side to us, we could let their face go completely underwater. I decided to go ahead and take the plunge with Brendan because we've had problems with him getting freaked out about his face getting water on it before, so I wanted to know ASAP if he was going to freak out. Luckily, he did great! He acted a little weird about it but never got upset. The teacher said that was awesome. Now, we just have to work on him learning how to kick.

Later yesterday afternoon (after a 2.5 hour nap! Yay!), we took Brendan to the pool for the first time this season. We have a spray park at our pool that is huge - two covered slides, a giant bucket that dumps water out and tons of sprays going on all over the place. It's pretty intense and last year Brendan wanted nothing to do with it. He was completely the opposite this year. We couldn't get him away from it without him crying! He would put his face all in the sprayers and loved going down the slide with us as well. Last year, we always wanted to stay longer at the pool and he was ready to go. This year, I think it will be the other way around :)

Speaking of the pool, have I mentioned how this kid is obsessed with being outside? I think he would spend every waking hour outside if we would let him. Lately, I just prop open the back door and let him come in an out as he pleases. He's not really interested in me playing out there with him (in fact, he's not much interested in me playing with him hardly at all - he really enjoys his independent play), so I just go out periodically to talk to him and get stuff done inside while he's having fun. Our backyard isn't that big and there isn't anywhere he could go in it that he could get hurt.

He has this car and a dump truck that he pushes around. Occasionally, he likes to mow the lawn with his lawn mower :) He likes to bring the trucks into his house, like this:

And then stand there with them for a minute, and turn around and come out.
He also enjoys playing with Shiner except when Shiner tries to get something from Brendan and bites him. Then Brendan runs inside holding his arm up at me, doing a dramatic cry and pointing at Shiner. He's never really hurt and Brendan is a little bit of a drama "king" (cue multiple times of high pitched, shrill screams that often come from the backyard while he's playing), so it's pretty funny.

Last week, Brendan and Tim were playing on the bed and I was trying to take pictures. Tim told Brendan to "look at Mommy and stick out your tongue." This was what resulted:
We did some more playing outside and got some good pictures of him...Oh, he loves rocks as well and often finds little ones to bring to me.
This was actually mid-pout/cry/small tantrum. He was upset at either 1) Shiner or 2) one of his cars not cooperating with going around in the grass. I just got him at a short quiet moment so the picture turned out pretty :)
Being silly inside, for a change
He still has his love affair with trash cans. He finds them everywhere we go. I'm not exaggerating at all here. No matter where we are, he manages to point out a trash can and say "trash" and, if he's not contained somehow, always walks over to them and tries to take them with him or stick his hand in them. It's greattttt.
I am 22-23 weeks pregnant (23 on Thursday). I had a doctor's appointment today and everything still seems to be going really well. Heartbeat was nice and fast. Griffin kicks up a storm lately. I feel him over and over throughout the day. I have gained 12 pounds total. A little more than I wanted to have gained at this point (was hoping to be 10 pounds or less) but I'm still happy with my progress verses where I was with Brendan at this point (which was somewhere around 20 or more pounds gained). I'm still walking about 40 minutes almost daily.

Here's a picture taken last (?) week, with shirt on
And this one was taken last Thursday. I am slumping a little, which I think makes my stomach look more pooched out, but this is pretty accurate.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! We are headed to Destin, FL in one week for a vacation until June 11 with my mom, stepdad, Nanny and Papa. We are very excited and I'm encouraged by how much Brendan loved the pool in hopes he will also love the beach. If I don't post before then, I'll post when we get back!

La La La

2011-05-10T20:30:00.002-05:00

I don't have anything creative for a title and not much to post about. Sorry!

This week, I'm 19 weeks pregnant (20 on Thursday), so just right at halfway done with the pregnancy! Time is starting to go by faster and faster now. I just realized I accidentally put in the wrong picture and it's really hard to change out pictures for me on Blogger, so this is the 18 week one. I just took 19 weeks yesterday, so it will be better to wait on the 20 week one anyway or there won't be any difference :)

I can't remember if I said in my post, I don't think I did, but I had gained 5 pounds total when I went to my appointment last week. I'd like to keep it at 5 pounds through this week. We'll see if I make it.

Weekend before last (the last weekend of April/beginning of May), we celebrated our three year anniversary. My dad and Nancy kept Brendan AND the dogs for us so we could have a weekend of no responsibilities to relax. It was SO nice to have the weekend and we really appreciated them taking care of all our children for the weekend :) Friday, we went to dinner at Patrizio's on 7th (one of my most favorite restaurants but until recently it's only been in Plano and Highland Park) and then just came home and hung out. Saturday, we slept in until 10:00!!, went to lunch at Corner Bakery, got massages at the Mokara Spa in the Omni in downtown Fort Worth and then went to dinner at Ruth's Chris. It was delicious! Sunday, we went and got Brendan and had lunch with everyone before coming back home.

Here is our picture from Ruth's Chris. The dress I am wearing is the dress I wore: 1) in Las Vegas when we went right before we got engaged, 2) when we got engaged and 3) for our first anniversary. Tim said I need to make it a tradition to wear it every year :)
This past weekend, we went to Crockett and saw Nanny and Papa, Mammaw and Pappaw and CiCi and PeePaw for the weekend to celebrate Nanny's birthday and Mother's Day. Brendan is so lucky to still have four great grandparents that he gets to spend time with. Of course, as usual, I was terrible about taking pictures. Here is one of CiCi and Brendan on Mother's Day after we ate lunch. We had a wonderful time visiting with everyone.
I wear a necklace most everyday that has two hearts on it. One is a heart from Nanny that was the first gift my Papa gave her. The other heart has Brendan's initials on it. For Mother's Day, I got a new heart for my necklace with Griffin's initials :) Also, it wasn't technically for Mother's Day but I guess it counts for that, I got a double BOB stroller because they were on sale at L.L. Bean. I'm so excited to have it and can't wait to use it once Griffin is here - it's the ultimate stroller and the one thing I've been saying I wanted since before we even got pregnant.

Hope all of you had a great weekend and Mother's Day! I will try to be much better at taking pictures!

Here We Go Again!

2011-05-02T19:12:00.003-05:00

It's a....

BOY!!

He is healthy and growing right on track :) Everything looks great with me as well. Now to just make it through the next several months until we get to meet him in person! We are planning on naming him Griffin Dunning. Dunning is Tim's mom's maiden name - carrying on the trend of mom's maiden names for middle names for the boys, since Brendan's is Hobson (my mom's maiden name). We might call him "Finn" for a nickname but that's not for sure, yet. We originally wanted to name him Finn but decided Griffin would be better so he would have the option of a longer name later on. Tim doesn't like the nickname "Griff" so we won't use that.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Happy Easter!

2011-04-26T14:24:00.006-05:00

We went to Houston this past weekend to celebrate Easter. Brendan had lots of fun with his Nana, Aunt Shannon, Uncle Brian and cousins, Kate and Carolyn.

He loved playing outside (as usual), especially with the golf set. He thought it would be fun to ride on it if he could!
Occasionally, he would push it.
We went to a park and splash pad by their house for some fun on Saturday morning. Brendan enjoyed it but really liked running back and forth between the park and the splash pad (which was a pain taking shoes on and off!).
Trying to catch some water.
Swinging with Daddy, who was making him laugh by grabbing his legs
He LOVED his cousins! He tried to hug and kiss them a lot. I was trying to get a picture of him loving on Kate, but they kept moving :) He is still learning how to just "be sweet" though and not be hugging or kissing you and turn it into a bite or a pinch!
The Easter Bunny was very good to Brendan! The basket on the right is the one from the Easter Bunny and on the left is from Nana. He also got some Hot Wheels from Shannon, Brian, Kate and Carolyn. And, when we went to Waco, he got a fun new toy, some new books and a new ball from Lolli, Pops, Alex, Emily and Caroline. He racked up!
When it was time to hunt Easter eggs on Sunday morning, he thought he might just prefer to ride the golf bag some more...
Then he decided to find a few eggs.
But had to take a break in the midst of hunting to play a little golf
Look what I got!
Only good picture of him I got that day. He was very grumpy, I think from getting his molars. A friend from law school is working on putting a different background on the picture for me so it will look a little prettier.
Brendan and Uncle Brian
Brendan and Nana (no smiles, of course! But still cute).
Hope everyone had a very happy Easter! The big ultrasound is in less than a week!! Be sure to vote in the poll on the right side of the page whether you think it's a boy or a girl!

Hippity Hoppity

2011-04-19T18:23:00.006-05:00

Brendan had his 15 month appointment week before last and he is right on track for everything :) Here are his stats:

Weight: 28.6 pounds (92nd percentile)

Height: 33 1/2 inches (97th-99th percentile)

Head: 19 1/4 inches (80th percentile)

Pretty much the same as he's always been except his head growth has slowed down some. At 15 months, he says about 17 words for sure, 20 possible. He says: mama, dada (A LOT more than mama!), dog, duck, quack, hi, hey, bye bye, truck, trash, teddy, bear, done, down, hot, that, and yeah. Sometimes, he says a word that sounds like "Shiner" and one that sounds like "Tucker" and sometimes says "mooo." He doesn't say "bath" or "bottle" anymore, which is weird (not the bottle part since he doesn't get them anymore, but the bath part). He LOVES trains, trucks, cars, construction equipment. Whenever he is playing with cars he goes "vrrroooooom" as he drives them around :) He also is starting to love Thomas the Train. He also has recently learned how to make a "kiss" sound and blow kisses. Except, he doesn't use his hand when he blows kisses. You ask him to blow you a kiss and he just starts making the kiss noise haha.

Two cute things I want to remember. This weekend, on Friday night, after Tim and I tucked him in and said "night night" and were walking out of the room, he started whispering "bye bye" to us. Then, Saturday night, as we were leaving his room, he started making the kiss noise to us as we walked out :)

This week I am 16 weeks pregnant (17 on Thursday). A little less than two weeks until the big ultrasound! You should see a poll to your right on the page for you to vote whether you think it's a boy or a girl. I have been feeling the baby move a lot more this week. It is most active between 3:00 and 5:00 PM as of now. I hope that sticks around because I went into labor right at the time Brendan was the most active in my belly (4:00 AM) so if the trend stuck with this baby, maybe I would go into labor around 3:00 PM. That would be most convenient!

Here is my belly picture for 16 weeks. Not much change from 15 weeks. (Excuse my crazy hair!)

Monday, we had a playdate at our house for Easter. It was an Easter Egg Hunt and lunch at our house. It was a lot of fun and I think everyone had a great time. Nancy/Lolli makes a Bunny Cake every year at Easter and so I got the recipe from her to try it myself for the first time for our playdate. I was really happy with how it turned out:
Here are all the kids playing before the egg hunt. Well, not all of them, but several of them.
Starting the egg hunt. Brendan putting an egg in his basket.
He was excited about putting two eggs in the basket and then he was pretty much done.
All the kids also really liked the playhouse.
Here are some pictures from today. Brendan makes really funny faces these days. Here's an example of one of them (haha):
We do A LOT of playing outside these days. I finally got a couple cute pictures today of him smiling while playing outside. He loves to run through the grass.
And, of course, he's always loving playing in the playhouse.
We are heading to Houston this weekend for Easter with Tim's mom (Nana), brother, sister-in-law, and nieces. We're excited to hang out with them and will also be stopping through Waco on our way back (Lolli and Pops are keeping the dogs for us) to have some Easter lunch. Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter! Sorry I still haven't figured out how to upload that video.

15/15

2011-04-04T11:04:00.004-05:00

I'm having a hard time figuring out how to upload the videos from my camcorder to my computer :( I'm going to keep trying so you can see Brendan dancing/jumping. Lately, he has added a head bob to the dancing and moves his arms, too, but I haven't gotten a video of that, yet.

Weekend before last, we went to Boerne to see my mom and stepdad one last time before they move in April/May. Brendan really enjoyed spending some time with his CiCi and PeePaw. Of course, I was terrible about taking pictures, but here are a few.

Brendan reading a bedtime story with CiCi.

More bedtime story.
Brendan doesn't look enthused ;) This is how he normally looks in pictures, even when he is happy! He's a hard kid to get to smile in pics!
Also the other week, it was a beautiful day outside so we went and played in the backyard. I put Brendan in a bathing suit with no diaper. Bad mistake on my part. He shortly pooped so I had to strip him and just left him without pants. Tim thinks it looks like he's pooping in this picture, but he's not! He's just checking out the yard animals haha
Playing with his water table while Shiner enjoys some refreshment.
This past weekend, we had our friends from the playgroup (moms, dads and babies) over for dinner and playtime. We had such a great time! I didn't get any pictures but some of the other moms did so hopefully I'll get one or two to post. The rest of the weekend was spent putting together the bunk beds for Brendan's big boy room (he won't be in it until June but we went ahead and got it painted this past week because we wanted to put the bed together) and putting up a chair rail in the nursery, which we also got painted. Everything looks SO good but I haven't taken pictures yet and Brendan is napping now so I can't get one of his room. I will do that ASAP and have them next time I post.

Last Monday, we had our doctor's appointment to hear the baby's heartbeat. It was 160 bpm. Brendan's was 162 the first time we heard it, so pretty close! Also, I did Intelligender a couple weeks ago, like I did with Brendan, to see what it said. It was right with Brendan so I wanted to do it again to test it.

Here were the results:
We'll see if it's right at our big ultrasound/anatomy scan on May 2! I can't wait! I will post a poll in the top right corner of the page so you can vote on what you think the baby will be.

Here is my 14 week belly picture from Thursday:

The belly is definitely starting to pop out and friends/family have noticed a big difference. I have only gained 1 pound over the 1st trimester, so I am hoping to keep up a slow weight gain so I don't gain the 60 pounds I did with Brendan. The post title is in reference to the fact that this week, Brendan will be 15 months old and I will be 15 weeks pregnant. That is the only time that will happen on the same week this pregnancy. We have Brendan's appointment on Wednesday with the pediatrician. I'm afraid he isn't going to have grown since his 12 month, which would mean he would have dropped to the 80th percentile on height. Which, of course, is okay, but I really loved him being high up there in the height department :)

I'll post his stats and details from the appointment next week. And, I'll keep working on getting the videos from the camcorder. Hope you all had a great weekend!

14 Months/12 Weeks

2011-03-15T21:26:00.008-05:00

Hello, everyone! This daylight savings thing is totally kicking my butt. Not only does Brendan not want to go to bed and is having trouble napping but I'm not tired at my normal bedtime, so I go to bed later and wake up SO tired. Ugh!

I am also trying to wrap up the last of my work. I decided I needed to focus on Brendan, getting things ready for the new baby and actually doing Brendan's scrapbook/baby book these last few months before the baby comes. Plus, work was always stressing me out and that wasn't very fun for me or Tim. I have had a lot of trouble getting motivated to get everything done, though, because I have been so tired. I have GOT to get the stuff done so it quits hanging over my head!

I will be 12 weeks pregnant this Thursday. I found the heartbeat with my doppler that I have at home the other day, it was 174 bpm at it's highest. I'm also going to buy Intelligender tomorrow so we can try it again with this baby. I did it with Brendan and it was correct, so I feel like I have to see if it's right with this one as well :) We have our next appointment on Monday, March 28. Four weeks after that, when I should have my next appointment, I will be 17 weeks 4 days pregnant. The doctor told me at my last appointment that they will do the big ultrasound anywhere from 18-20 weeks, so I'm hoping he will either go ahead and do it 4 weeks from the appointment March 28, or that he will tell me to come in that Thursday when I will be 18 weeks, or make my appointment for 5 weeks out instead of 4. I think that he will because it would be dumb for me to go in and then come back just a week or two later for an ultrasound, but I'm not for sure. At the appointment March 28, we will just hopefully hear the heartbeat and I think that's about it.

Here is my picture from last week. I haven't weighed in a couple weeks because I'm trying to eat healthy (I gave up "unhealthy" food for Lent) and walk everyday, so I wanted to give myself a little bit to get on track before weighing. I probably will tomorrow. Hopefully it won't be terrible!

Here is when I was the same amount pregnant with Brendan. *Sigh* Look how tan and skinny I was and how young I looked. Boo hoo. I thought I looked pretty good until I found this! I can't wait for summer and bringing Brendan to the pool so I can get a tan!

Now, onto the good stuff. Here is my smiley FOURTEEN month old!!!

We have a really hard time getting him to eat his vegetables but he LOVES these fruit/veggie pouches we get at Target. They are organic and only contain mashed up of whatever fruit and vegetable are in them. No added anything else. He probably eats 2 a day. It's kind of sad he's still eating purees, but I feel better that he's getting some vegetables.
Happy boy eating some lunch. He must be happy when he wears this shirt. This is the most smiles I've gotten on camera in one day in ages! He will eat corn on it's own, however.
We went to Waco last Monday for a little visit because it was Lolli, Alex, Emily and Caroline's Spring Break. They have a cool park there that Brendan went to with them when he stayed before so we went back. Here he is "driving."
Going down the slide with Emily. He lovesssssss slides.
Another slide. Yay!
I went to a consignment sale a couple weeks ago. I wish I knew what I was having already and I could've gotten lots of clothes! Instead, I got some clothes for Brendan and got him a lawn mower. He loves it.
Playing outside on a nice day in his playhouse.
He is obsessed with Tucker's food and water bowl and constantly tries to knock over the water or eat the food. Consequently we have to keep it put up unless we are leaving. Poor Tucker.

Brendan clapped for the first time today. But, he only did it two times and I never could get him to again. He has also started dancing and jumping (pretty much the same move of bouncing up and down, but he does it when you ask him to "dance" or "jump" haha). I have a video of it but forgot to bring the video camera upstairs with me to upload it when I was doing the blog post. I will make sure to do it later this week or beginning of next week. He has also started doing a funny laugh randomly whenever we are in a store or he sees people and waves at them (not all the time when he waves, but sometimes). It is really funny but also a little weird :)

I guess that's about all! If you have a Spring Break, I hope you are enjoying it. If not, hope you're having a good week anyway :)

Ultrasound Pictures

2011-03-01T22:13:00.003-06:00

Here was our first ultrasound when I was 6 weeks, 4 days:

Here is the second, at 8 weeks, 4 days:
The head is on the left (I think it kind of looks like a head) and the little ball on the right is the yolk sac. Isn't it crazy how much the baby grew in two weeks?

I'll be 10 weeks on Thursday, but I don't have another appointment until March 28 and likely won't have another ultrasound until the big one around 20 weeks.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

2011-02-21T19:48:00.003-06:00

Brendan has an announcement he would like to make:

Yes, that's right, folks! Brendan is going to be a BIG brother! I am currently 8 weeks, 4 days pregnant and due September 29th. We have seen/heard the heartbeat twice at the doctor now, so I think everything is going to go smoothly and work out, so we didn't want to keep it a secret any longer :)

So far, I pretty much feel the same way as I did with Brendan. I feel sick if I haven't eaten but I haven't actually gotten sick at all and, other than being tired, I feel fine. Brendan and the baby will be just about 21 months apart. I can't think of anything else to tell you right now. I have an ultrasound picture from today but haven't been able to scan it yet so I will post it another time this week or next week. Start your guessing on what we're having ;)

Here's a couple pictures of Brendan from today because I'm quite possibly the worst picture taker ever since he has turned one! Poor Brendan. I am going to make a real effort to be better about it.

His new favorite thing is taking his race cars and dropping them through the little holes on the sides of this chair. He has also discovered pushing cars/tractors/trucks/etc. around and loves to run them over the fireplace and along the floor. It's very cute.

He also enjoys trying to step on and put things that are too heavy on his racetrack. I feel like I am constantly saying "No, Brendan, that is going to break it" and then he gives me a mischievous smile and tries to keep doing it. He has, however, learned how to roll the cars down the ramp onto the spinning part of the racetrack rather than just throwing them into the spinner. That new trick is courtesy of Daddy.
Happy boy! I finally was able to make him laugh and get a clear picture of him smiling and being extra happy! It's a miracle :)
He also took both of his bottles out of a sippy cup today! There was a little complaining once he was done, but he drank them without a fight. I am so happy! He is turning into such a big boy. I don't think he crawled once today, just walked. He got his one year shots but only cried for a minute and then has acted fine the rest of the day.

He spent a wonderful and fun weekend with his Lolli, Pops, Aunts Emily and Caroline and Uncle Alex in Waco. Tim and I had two blissful days of sleeping in (well, sort of two for me, I had to get up at 4:00 AM to go register him for Mother's Day Out on Saturday morning. It doesn't start until the very end of August, but that's another story! And, I did get to come home and go back to sleep for 3 hours), going to dinner and going to a Miranda Lambert concert at Billy Bob's. It was a great break for us and I know Brendan had a fun time. They also successfully got him to start drinking only water out of his sippy cup instead of water mixed with juice. Yay!

That's about it! If you are friends with me on facebook, you will know I haven't posted this on facebook yet. I wanted to post it for my awesome blog readers to see first and I will likely post about it on facebook tomorrow. Hope y'all had a fun weekend!

Snow, Snow Go Away

2011-02-07T20:05:00.006-06:00

Hello! It's been a couple weeks. I guess this snow we've had just made all the time and energy get away from me.

In case you didn't know, we got quite a snow last week. Tim had to stay home from work everyday starting Tuesday and we were cooped up in the house until Friday. Needless to say, I was very thankful for some sunny weather this weekend and am NOT looking forward to the possibility of more snow on Wednesday.

Here are just a few snowy pictures. I know you've probably seen tons on facebook.

Tim thought these icicles on one of our trees was pretty

Brendan got a play set from his CiCi for his birthday. Tim finally got it put together weekend before last, just in time for one or two days of nice weather before it got too cold to play on it. Here's what it looks like covered in snow:
We spent lotssss of time inside. Brendan renewed his love for getting in Shiner's cage with Shiner and closing them in.
In the past two weeks since I last posted, he is walking consistently and very well. He still crawls occasionally but mostly walks.
Laughing with Daddy. He really enjoyed Daddy being home all week, but Daddy didn't get as much work done as he needed to!
Before the snow days, Brendan playing on his playset for the first time.
He loved to slide!
It also has a little playhouse attached to it with a door, little picnic table, and two seats. He thinks the whole thing is great fun.
We also got Brendan's One Year pictures taken a couple weeks ago. Here are a few of them from the session.

Unfortunately, we couldn't get many smiles out of him the whole time, but the pictures are still pretty cute.

He also had his one year appointment. He couldn't get his vaccines because he had fluid on his ear from a never-ending cold he has had. We finally had to get him on antibiotics this past Thursday because his cough and congestion just would not go away. I think he is finally getting better now. So, we have to go back in a week or so to get the vaccines. Here are his stats:

Weight: 26.6 pounds (90th percentile)

Length: 32 1/4 inches (97th percentile)

Head: 19 inches (95th percentile)

He's still the big boy he has been his whole life! The doctor said his weight should slow down at this point and he would be more surprised if he stayed in the 90th percentile than if he fell out of it. Brendan is doing everything his is supposed to be doing and says several words now as well. I know I'm going to repeat some I've mentioned before, but here are some of his words:

bath, bottle, hi, bye, hey, mama (occasionally), dada (often), Shiner (he says something to the effect of "Shiiiii" when he points at him), Tucker (Tuuuuuhhhhh), that, and sometimes I think he says a word for his Teddy. There are a lot of times he says things that sound just like he is saying something we just said or something that fits with the situation but, of course, we can't get him to repeat it, so I don't know if he really does or not.

He points at EVERYTHING and also loves to wave at people. He has no problem with strangers and, in the past two weeks, has reached out for a Home Depot employee to hold him and has reach out for some random man talking to him at a restaurant to hold him. We left him in the kids play place at the gym we just joined and he happily reached out for the girl working there and walked away without ever looking back at us. When we came to get him, a guy who was watching him carried him over to us and he didn't even reach out for us like he wanted to leave! I guess we at least don't have to worry much about separation anxiety!

We are still battling getting rid of the bottle. I was planning to ditch it cold turkey at 13 months (yesterday) but since he has still been a little sick, I think we will wait until next week or possibly the next because he is going to stay in Waco not this weekend but the next and I don't want to burden them with trying to get him to drink milk without the bottle! The doctor said he has to be off of it by 15 months and I will make sure we make that. He drinks fine out of a sippy cup but refuses to drink any milk out of one. He will take a sip, not realizing what it is, make a face at me, and then throw the cup on the floor. He just has two bottles a day (morning and night) but he absolutely loves them and gets so excited when I ask him if he wants his bottle :(

I think that's about all! Hope y'all all survived the cold and have a great week!

More Birthday

2011-01-18T15:01:00.003-06:00

Here are a few more birthday pictures.

Brendan enjoying his smash cake

Brendan is a lot more interested in eating his cake than he is in taking a picture!

Nanny and Papa with Brendan. Papa is more worried about watching Brendan eat than take a picture ;)

CiCi and Peepaw with Brendan. You can tell this is further in to the cake eating. Brendan looks like he's wondering what's going on.

And last, but most definitely not least, Brendan's sweet friend Caroline sent him this picture using her Mommy's phone on his birthday:

Isn't she too cute?!

I still need to get some more pictures from the birthday party from other people, but I thought you might like to see the few more I got. There is another new post below this one, so be sure to check it out, too!

Randoms & Little Gym

2011-01-18T14:38:00.005-06:00

We haven't had much going on the past week because I was sick with a terrible cold and then Brendan got it :( Luckily, I got better pretty quickly because my amazing husband came home from work at lunch the second (and worst) day of the cold and watched Brendan so I could nap for FOUR hours. I felt much better after that. Brendan is pretty much better now but he has a cough from all the congestion breaking up. Poor guy.

So here are just some some random pictures and some pictures from our last class of the semester at Little Gym. I'll post a few cute birthday ones in a separate post.

Eating some puffs and playing in mommy and daddy's room. I'm not sure why he looks so concerened! (Shiner is the blur on the left side of the picture)

Trying to get Shiner under the bed. We do have sheets on our bed, by the way, but I was washing them at the time.

I realized I haven't posted a new picture of Shiner in a LONG time. He got his first haircut the other day and we did a Schnauzer cut around his face because I'm not a big fan of the Wheaten cut on the face because it covers their eyes. We were totally shocked by how different he looked with that cut AND with some of his hair cut off it cut most of the dark that was left off and he is much lighter now!

Playing with his Christmas gift from Santa. He loves this thing and knows how to put the shapes back where they go.

Happy boy!

Today at Little Gym...working on moving over things.

Practicing some walking. His shirt says "Mom's Little Man of the House." It was from Lolli and Pops for Christmas :)

This is what he does when he wants to throw the ball. He lifts it up to his face, opens his mouth like he's going to bite it and then lets go. haha

They had a cute little medal ceremony at the end where they all got medals for finishing the class. Here is Miss Natalie giving him he medal.

"Oh I love this medal. I think I will kiss it and eat it!"

We are going to do Little Gym again and it restarts next week so he won't know the difference except we'll be going on a different day and time and he'll be in the older class.

Everything else is pretty much the same, not a whole lot going on around here. One BIG thing I forgot to mention before because I was waiting on Tim to tell our families and then forgot I hadn't posted it, Tim was offered a Junior Partnership in his law firm! So, he is now a Partner of a law firm at the ripe old age of 28 :) We were SO excited about this opportunity and promotion because it was not expected for at least another year or two. Yay, Tim!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Post TONIGHT (Update!)

2011-01-10T14:50:00.002-06:00

**I DID do a post, but since I started it before I posted this, it is on the page BELOW this post. So, scroll down for the new post!**

I will do a post tonight detailing Brendan's fabulous 1st birthday :)

I actually have all the pictures uploaded but he just woke up from a nap screaming so I can't add any details to them right now. Check back late tonight or tomorrow!

Happy Birthday, Brendan!

2011-01-10T14:35:00.008-06:00

January 6th was Brendan's FIRST birthday! I can't believe it's been a year. Funny story, the night before his birthday, Tim and I were going to bed and I said, jokingly, "I wonder if Brendan will wake up at 4:00 AM since that's what time I went into labor last year?" I woke up in the night to him crying and looked at the clock...guess what time it was? Yep, 4:00 AM! Can you believe it? When he does wake up in the night, it is never at 4:00 AM. I thought that was too crazy.

Tim stayed home from work on Brendan's birthday to spend the day with us. When everyone woke up, I went and got donuts and Brendan had some donut holes for breakfast. We all took a nap about 11:00 and, when we woke up, we went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch.

Brendan enjoying his lemonade at Chick-Fil-A. He is seriously addicted to this stuff. I made the mistake of giving it to him before he ate any of his food and he would NOT put it down. We had to force it out of his hands to get him to eat any lunch.

After lunch and some applesauce, doing a little munching on his spoon.

After lunch, we went to Southlake to Pigtails and Crewcuts for Brendan to get his very first professional haircut. Pigtails and Crewcuts was the cutest place and they did a great job. They had a "first haircut" package where they would take some pictures of him getting his hair cut and give you a little bag with some clippings of his hair in it.

Brendan wondering what the heck was going on....He kept turning when she would try to cut around his ears but he did a good job overall.

He was obsessed with the comb and started bawling when we had to give it back to the lady. Luckily, they had a treasure chest of toys for the kids to pick from and it had a comb in it. Whew!

Family picture :)

Brendan in his getup for the day. He had some super cute boots but I bought them too big accidentally and they wouldn't stay on. His shirt was a present from my cousin, Jackie, for his birthday. It has a little baby in a diaper and an A&M helmet and it says "Put me in Coach! Future 12th Man." Isn't that adorable?

On of his gifts from me and Tim. We took him on a walk in it after we got back from the haircut place.

At dinner. I know this picture is kind of blurry but it was too funny not to post. We went and ate at Pasados (sp probably) and Brendan had some cheese quesadilla, beans, rice, and guacamole.

After dinner, we ran by Kroger for me to pick him up a cupcake to have a little cake with us on his birthday. Their cupcakes were HUGE and this little cake was the same size and even cuter, so I got it instead. Here is the picture right when we set it down in front of him.

Then, he dove in...

And this is what it looked like afterwards....Needless to say, he enjoyed it.

He would NOT cooperate for his 12 month picture and this was the result:

Friday night, Tim and I went to watch the Aggies play LSU in the Cotton Bowl. Pretty much a depressing game, but Tim got some awesome pictures of Cowboys stadium as we were walking up

The stadium was really cool and it was worth all the money we paid for the tickets just to see it in person.

Saturday was Brendan's birthday party. Many of our family members and some of our friends came to the house Saturday afternoon for it. I forgot to include a picture of his invitation. I will try to do that next time. It was a farm-themed party.

Here is his cake. It turned out SO cute! We just got it from Albertson's and they did an amazing job and it tasted great. I would totally recommend them if you need a cake for anything. We also got a FREE smash cake for Brendan. He did just as well devouring that cake as he did the one on his birthday but I don't have any pictures of that. I will get some from other people and post them next time.

Here was the dining room decorated

Sign for the front door. I this and a Happy Birthday sign and some cupcake toppers from 62 Cards on Etsy. I would highly, highly recommend using them. She has some adorable stuff on her Etsy page but she also takes custom orders. She was extremely nice and did a wonderful job.
Party favors. I also got the little animals attached to the party favors from 62 Cards. The favors were Old McDonald Had a Farm Golden Book on bottom and in the bandana was a crayon (some were shaped like a tractor and then the older girls got a cool Crayola crayon instead), a little stuffed farm animal and a little tract or combine. I was really happy with how they turned out.

I made a banner of pictures of Brendan for each month of his first year to hang on the fireplace.

My pictures of the Happy Birthday sign from 62 Cards didn't turn out that great, but it was reallllllly cute. Each individual letter on a piece of paper, tied together with all different kinds of ribbon and little farm animals on each end and in the middle.

Brendan got LOTS of super awesome gifts for his birthday that he loves. We pretty much have all new toys for him now between this and Christmas. One of his gifts was a tunnel from his friend, Conner, and Conner's parents. He loves for us to be at one end and him crawl to us. I couldn't get any really clear pictures, but here is one of him coming toward me.

He's still slowly starting to walk. Some days he loves to try to take lots of steps and some days he only wants to crawl. But, he can pretty much stand on his own for as long as he wants and do mostly anything while standing on his own. He started saying "bye" sometimes and FINALLY started saying "Mama" sometimes, but not anytime you ask him. He says a lot of things that sound like real words/phrases but, of course, we aren't sure if we are just hearing things or he is actually saying them. We transitioned him to whole milk and he did great and drinks only milk (no formula) easily now. We are still working on weaning from the bottle and trying to come up with a game plan for that. Unforunately, he doesn't have his one year appointment until January 26th because when I called (over a month ago!) the doctor was booked until the 26th :( But, I'll update all his stats and all that whenever we go.

I think that's about it! Hope everyone is having a great New Year so far!

Ho Ho Ho!

2010-12-29T19:47:00.011-06:00

And I'm finally back! I think part of the reason I have such a hard time keeping up with blogging (other than taking care of Brendan all day and trying to work when he's napping ;)) is that it takes SOOOO long to upload pictures onto blogger! I can only do 3 at a time or it malfunctions and doesn't work and it takes me about an hour from start to finish, which is a pretty long time for a little blog post. If anyone has any tips about getting pictures to upload faster (other than having to go through the whole process of making them smaller on my computer before I upload them), I would really appreciate it.

This was a few days before we left for Red River. I just thought he looked precious and I hardly ever am able to get close up pictures.

This is blurry, but I wanted to show him "sharing" with Shiner. He spends a lot of the day trying to give his toys to Shiner or picking up Shiner's toys or bones and waving them around until Shiner comes and gets them. It's very cute. Shiner is currently staying in Waco with my Dad and Nancy because we didn't want to go through the hassle of driving 10 hours to RR with him and they were nice enough to say they would keep him until this coming weekend when we are going to visit them. Thanks, Nancy and Dad!

He loves to look out the window and "talk" about what he sees outside.

Mommy, THIS is a bear! He has started pointing in the past couple weeks. He points at things and makes a noise that sounds like "that?"

When we got to Red River, Peepaw was rocking him in the recliner. He thought it was pretty scary (is this a hilarious face, or what?!)

Luckily, Peepaw stopped and either CiCi or Daddy was making him laugh :)

It snowed the night we got there about 5 inches. This was Brendan's attire to go out to lunch the next day. He tried to pull the hat off at first but then left it alone. He did NOT like the gloves. Notice he even has some little ski boots!

He thought it was the greatest thing ever when CiCi would play patty-cake with him (she does it a different way than we do). Isn't this the sweetest picture with him looking at her?

Daddy and Brendan on Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve bath in Nanny's tub. He was a happy boy!

Family picture before bedtime on Christmas Eve. It was really warm in the house with the fire going, so that's why we all have red cheeks! And Brendan's were a little wind burned from when we went out for lunch.

We made some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies for Santa. The note is from me, telling Santa Brendan has been a very good boy and is excited about his first Christmas and to tell Mrs. Clause and the reindeer "hello."

Santa ate all the cookies and drank the milk! He left a note back telling Brendan he had been a very good boy and to enjoy his Christmas and remember that Santa is always watching :)

Brendan's loot from Santa. He got the Fisher Price Laugh & Learn House, an alligator xylophone and his stocking had two sets of Fisher Price Little People.

Christmas morning, checking out his new toy! Notice his long john pajamas. They say "Brendan's First Christmas." He LOVES the house and plays with it constantly.

Let's open this gift! (sorry for the lighting)

Daddy helping Brendan open all his gifts.

This is fun!

He got a Fisher Price Little People Farm, which he really likes.

And a cat keyboard that makes tons of different sounds. He also really likes it (I don't think there is any toy he got that he doesn't like!)

CiCi showing him how to put the shapes into his shape sorter. He's actually gotten pretty good at it and knows where some of the shapes go but still has a hard time getting them through into the bucket.

Playing with his new house with Papa.
What, Mommy? I'm trying to play here!

Picture of the scenery. This was on Sunday, so a lot of the snow had melted.

Close up family picture.

Brendan with his ladies :

Handsome boy

One thing I'm not sure Brendan mentioned in his last post (I've got a picture, but it's on my phone so I will post it later) is that he had his first Oreo the other day :) He is definitely Mommy's boy and LOVED it. Today, I gave him a few mini Oreos after his afternoon snack and when he had about four of them I told him that was enough and put the box of them away. Whenever I put them away, he started crying! I think I might have a sugar addict on my hands!

And, most exciting of all, Brendan started walking a little bit!! I know I posted before he had taken three steps one day, but he hadn't really done anything since then. Right when we got to Red River, he took 6 steps to go over to CiCi! The rest of the weekend there, he would take a few steps here and there and even stood up, took a step, stopped, and took another step (verses just getting going and taking steps until he fell). Today he walked back and forth between Tim and I several times. I know this is a WHOLE new ballgame when we start dealing with walking, but I'm really excited!

I hope all of you and your families had a very wonderful Christmas and have a very Happy New Year! My baby boy turns ONE in ONE week! I can't believe it!

Hangs Head

2010-12-28T15:07:00.001-06:00

I'm so, so sorry I've been such a terrible blogger! Probably none of you even want to read anymore because I've been so bad at it.

We have been really busy around here and went to Red River, New Mexico for Christmas (we left the 23rd at 4:00 AM and got back last night about 7:45). I have lots of pictures to post and Brendan had a wonderful first Christmas.

I plan on doing a blog post either tonight or during the day tomorrow. Again, my profuse apologies for not posting sooner. I feel like I never quite get caught up with everything I need to do!

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! See you tonight or tomorrow :)

30 Days!

2010-12-07T09:39:00.008-06:00

Hi, everybody!!
Sorry my mom is such a bad blogger. She just gets so busy and I make her really tired by the end of the day!

Sunday after Thanksgiving, I went and saw Santa! Here's a picture of me after seeing him. I was really excited!

This year, I liked Santa. I've heard that I might not like him so much next year, but this year he was pretty cool.
Mom had to take a picture of the picture to post it. See how good I was for the picture?!

Then, Santa and I had a serious talk about what I want for Christmas.

My mom is constantly sticking this camera thing in my face. One day, I just had enough of it and told her "Mommy, you STOP taking pictures!"

One of my new favorite things to do is play with Mommy's Coke Zero can after she gets done with the drink. I like to pretend like I am drinking it, too.

I'm already a good sharer, too. Look, I share with Shiner!

My first Thanksgiving was at our house this year! Here's my Pops, Aunt Emily and Suzie hanging out and watching some football before we ate.

Daddy and Uncle Alex are obsessed with some game on the computer called ESPN U. They always fight about whose campus is better.

My Nana came to have Thanksgiving with us, too! Here we are hanging out and I'm trying to sneak a peek at the TV. We're a house divided (notice my maroon pants and Nana's burnt orange shirt?!)

Here is Mommy's first ever Thanksgiving turkey! It turned out really well and everyone said it tasted delicious. I thought it was good, too, but I don't have anything to compare it to.

Here I am ready to eat some Thanksgiving lunch/dinner! I ended up getting too tired, though, and didn't want to eat anything so I took a nap instead. Later, I ate stuffing, turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn casserole and broccoli and rice casserole! I loved it all!

The night of Thanksgiving, it was REALLY cold outside so Mommy had to buy me some new fleece pajamas. Don't I look cute in them?

Here I am wearing some new pajamas that my CiCi got me. I really like them. I also still really like this elephant that makes classical music noise whenever you push his tummy. It always makes me smile :)

On Sunday after Thanksgiving, Mommy got out all the Christmas decorations. After she took everything out, I really liked playing in this box. I don't mess with the tree too much but there is a little tree in Daddy's study that I always try to pull on the ornaments. Now they keep the door closed to the study and I can't get in there so I just stand and bang on the door.
This is a new favorite activity of mine, in addition to opening all the cabinets and drawers. I'm very good at helping Mommy unload the dishwasher.

The other night, Mommy made the mistake of deciding to let me try to feed myself my dinner. Here is what it looked like shortly after she put it in front of me.

And here's what it looked like 5 minutes later. Oh, and just in case you thought I ate all that pasta that was in the middle part of my plate, I didn't. I just rubbed it around all over the tray and dropped it on the floor. I think maybe I ate 5 bites of it. I didn't like my banana and I didn't like my vegetables. Mostly, I just like to eat peanut butter, applesauce, yogurt, grilled cheese, and sometimes some peas and butternut squash. It's getting pretty difficult for mommy to come up with things for me to eat!

Here's another new favorite of mine. I love to open and close the garbage and recycling cans. It entertains me for a very long time.

Mommy and Daddy had to put gates at the bottom and top of the stairs because I learned how to climb up the stairs but I also try to follow Tucker and Shiner down the stairs and I'm not so good at that yet. Whenever Mommy has to go downstairs real quick to get something, I like to stand at the gate to watch for her to come back
I turned 11 months old yesterday!! And today, it's only 30 days until I turn ONE year old! Can you believe it?! Also, I took TWO steps yesterday!! But, I decided I didn't want to do it anymore after that, except I did take one little step for Daddy when he got home, just to show him I can do it. I also have SIX teeth now and I think I'm about to get two more. I say "hi," "yeah," and "bath" now. Sometimes Mommy thinks I say "bottle" whenever she says it to me, but she's not sure. I talk a lot of sentences, too, but Mommy and Daddy still aren't quite sure what I'm saying yet.

I'm still really loving Little Gym. We went back last week for the first time in two weeks because there was a break for Thanksgiving. Right when we walked in the gym I started screaming in excitement to be back! Everytime they bring the balls out, I runnnnnn as fast as I can when I'm holding Mommy's hands so I can get to the balls as quickly as possible. Sometimes I like to kick them and other times I like to crawl after them and hit them with my hands.

I think that's about all going on with me right now. Most of my friends are about to turn one year old as well so I have lots and lots of birthday parties coming up. I can't wait to eat cake!

Yayyy for turning 11 months old!

Hope everyone had a fun weekend and has a good week! I'll pester Mommy to make sure she posts again next week and doesn't take a long break!

Update**

2010-12-01T21:00:00.002-06:00

I'm sorry I haven't posted this week. I'm really busy with work stuff right now but I will try to post ASAP.

If you click on the link that I posted below to vote for Brendan, it IS tied to a place. Yesterday, he was in 19th place but today he fell to 20th place, so you would need to click forward one picture to vote for him. When the new rankings come up in the morning, I will post a new link for tomorrow.

Thank you to those of you who have voted!

**Unfortunately, as of today, Brendan has fallen to #35. I know lots of people are voting for him, so I think it's just one of those things that other people have had a surge in voting for their pictures since this started. It is still SO awesome that he might even be in the top 100 out of thousands of pictures! We really appreciate y'all voting for him and trying to help him win! I'm leaving to go out of town for my cousin's wedding early in the morning, so I likely won't post until Monday or Tuesday, but I definitely will post one of those days. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Vote for Brendan!

2010-11-29T17:31:00.002-06:00

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

2010-11-23T16:19:00.002-06:00

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

2010-11-18T10:00:00.007-06:00

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!

2010-11-16T16:48:00.000-06:00

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!

Trick or Treat

2010-10-31T20:56:00.006-05:00

Happy Halloween!! Hope everyone had a very fun day. We definitely did!

Our pumpkin
With the lights out...

Introducing....Bam Bam!

That's from the Flintstones, in case you're like my sister, Caroline, who said "who?!" when my dad told her Brendan was being Bam Bam and he said "From the Flintstones!" and she said "What's that?" That made me feel old.

This Saturday, we went and visited my cousin, Paxton, his wife, Abby, their 14 month old son, Ty, and their newest addition, Emery! We also visited with Paxton's mom, Ann, and her fiance. It was great to spend some time with them and hopefully we will get together again soon! I didn't get a picture of Emery, but she is gorgeous and Ty is so much fun. Brendan attempted to stand on his own and fell over on Ty, which did not please him at all, but other than that I think they enjoyed eachother. Here's a picture of me and Abby and the boys:

Ann also gave Brendan this really cute Tigger toy, I meant to take a picture of it, that shakes and sings a Christmas song. Brendan thinks it is hilarious. Thanks, Ann!

After we got back to Fort Worth from visiting them, we headed to Little Gym for a Halloween party with some of our friends. Here is Brendan standing on some of the bars. I was trying to get him to walk holding onto them like he had done before, but he wasn't having it.
Playing in the ball pit. He liked it okay. But, he did get 4 new rubber ducks for the bathtub! Score!

What he really liked was this balloon. He actually crawled around to chase it! Amazing!

Here are Brendan's friends, minus Harrison, who was a pirate. Ben is in front of Brendan, he was a cowboy. Kinley is crawling towards the other balloon, she was a pink poodle. Ashlyn is sitting near Kinley, she was a lamb. Terrible picture to show all the cute costumes, but I didn't have a better one!

Then, today we went to a block party on our street for Halloween. Brendan met a new friend named Christopher who's almost 16 months. He got a little overwhelmed after awhile so we only stayed about 45 minutes. Here he is hiding in Daddy's legs.

After we put Brendan to bed, we handed out candy to the Trick or Treaters. I bought almost $40 worth of candy and I thought we had a ton but we ended up running out about 7:30 and had to turn our light off! There were lots and lots of kids. I can't wait to do that with Brendan next year!

Last but not least, on Saturday before we went to visit Abby and Paxton, we went to see the soon to be newest addition to the family. We will go pick him up for good on November 15th. Say "hello" to Shiner!

He was great! Very calm for a puppy but still liked to play and have fun. Whenever I picked him up, he just relaxed in my arms and started falling asleep. I don't know what Tucker is going to think, but I've been reading up on how to properly introduce a puppy to your older dog and how to make the older dog not hate the puppy, so hopefully it will work.

Brendan finally started walking with his walker a little more this week and will walk across the room holding onto it. He also has started letting go of things sometimes when he's holding onto them and trying to stand on his own. Before, I would have to let go of his hands to get him to try to stand alone but now he's doing it by himself.

I think that's it. Hope y'all had as great of a weekend as I did!

Ready...Set.....GO!

2010-10-26T21:18:00.003-05:00

We had some exciting developments this past week. First, Brendan walked "by himself" (while holding onto some bars) at Little Gym. AND, he also stood up by himself for about 10 seconds at the same class! Last but not least....

Yep! He actually crawls! But, I do have a disclaimer. He hates it. He only crawls in order to get to me to stand up. Only when he is forced to cross the room to get to me to stand up. Haha. It's quite funny but at least he's actually doing it!

He also rediscovered his love for the activity table and actually likes to play at it sometimes again.

Annnddd, he got a new walker/ride on car from Lolli and Pops! So far, he doesn't really like to walk on it but sometimes he does like to sit on it and steer and even occassionally move his feet so he goes forward on it. Doesn't he look cute? :)

This past weekend, we went to Crockett to celebrate my mom's (CiCi's) 50th birthday. Her birthday is actually today (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!) but we celebrated it over the weekend. Brendan loved getting to see his CiCi, Peepaw, Nanny and Papa as well as his great aunt and uncle and cousin. He also got to visit with his Mammaw and Pappaw (my grandparents on my dad's side) who live across the street from Nanny and Papa but I was bad and didn't take a picture with them. He had an awesome time playing their piano and walking around the living room.

Having a conversation with Papa...

Helping CiCi blow out the candles on her cake

And a family shot before we had to leave (I don't know why Peepaw looks concerned/confused haha)

Brendan is so blessed to not only have all his grandparents still around but to also have FOUR great-grandparents that he gets to spend time with. We like to try to take lots of opportunities for him to spend time with them because it is such a wonderful thing for him to still have them around.

I forgot to mention in my last post that I also had a Girl's Night two Thursdays ago (when I got back from Boerne) with four of the girls I've become friends with in my playgroup. We went and painted pottery then went to a bar for some appetizers and drinks and then went to one of the girl's houses for some more chatting. I ended up not getting home until 2:00 AM! I was pretty darn tired the next day but it was such an awesome night and it is great to have made some really good new friends.

Hope everyone is having a good week! Oh, and if I don't post beforehand, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Blah

2010-10-25T19:40:00.002-05:00

Sorry, I'm not going to post tonight. I didn't want y'all to think I forgot, because I didn't. I'm in a bad mood and I haven't uploaded pictures and I don't feel like doing it.

I'll make time tomorrow.

Two Weeks Ago

2010-10-24T21:20:00.004-05:00

Can you believe it? I actually did what I promised and posted three times this week! I know, I know, it's 9:25 PM on Sunday, but I still got the third one in :) After this, I'll be caught up and tomorrow I will post about this past week/weekend.

The week of October 11, we went to Boerne for the week to spend some time with my mom and for me to get my hair done. Brendan loves seeing his CiCi and she loves seeing him! We spent Monday-Thursday morning there and had a GREAT time. But, of course, I took ZERO pictures. So, I'm doing a throwback picture of CiCi and Brendan from when he was 8 months old.

October 15th, we went to Waco to spend the night at my dad and Nancy's and then go to the A&M v. Missouri game with them on Saturday. This was Brendan's first A&M game, other than the one he went to while he was in my tummy :). Unfortunately, he HATED it :( We already knew loud noises scare him, but I thought he had sort of gotten over that. Well, the game started with the jets flying over and he freaked out at that. He spent the rest of the 1.5 quarters we were there screaming and crying. *sigh* Nancy, Emily, Caroline and my dad tried to help out SO much so we could watch as much of the game as possible, but it got to the point that Brendan was inconsolable and I wasn't going to put Nancy through that any longer!

Of course, as soon as we got out of the stadium, Brendan cheered up. We took that opportunity to take some pictures to remember his first game.

Out on the E. King Gill statue (I was afraid he was going to fall!) His overalls say "Class of 2032" down the leg :)

With Daddy in front of the stadium

As we were walking to the car, we passed this AWESOME dude! He is a Storm Trooper from Star Wars but instead of being in white, he was in maroon! He was really nice, by the way.

He passed out in the car on the way to get our car (lonnng complicated story to explain that, not worth going into here!) and, for the first time in his life, I was able to get him out of the carseat (so we could switch it into my car) and he stayed asleep. I sat in the cool car with him while Tim switched it and we snapped a couple pictures.

It was probably a good thing we left the game, because the Aggies got their butts kicked 30 to 9 by Missouri. Poor Aggies. My dad says they'll be good by the time Brendan is there ;)

Sunday morning before we left. With Lolli and Pops

Family shot with Brendan. From left, Caroline, Alex, Pops, Emily, Lolli

That's about all, folks! I will post tomorrow with an update from this past week and weekend. We took another trip and have some exciting news about Brendan!

Pumpkin Patch

2010-10-20T12:49:00.006-05:00

On Sunday, October 10, we went to the Flower Mound Pumpkin Patch with some of our friends. It was a great time, although it was quite hot and dusty. We took lots of pictures. The first two are from a couple of my friends, so they're a little out of order, but I thought they were really cute and wanted to include them.

Brendan and two of his girlfriends :) Ashlyn on the left, Kinley on the right. Brendan eating his hand, as usual.
I think Brendan fell in love with Kinley that day. He kept touching her and I think this picture says it all about how he feels haha

Pondering life in the pumpkin patch with some Hello Kitty cutouts.

I was trying to get Tim to stick Brendan's face through the Tigger cutout but Brendan was not having it.

What are we doing here? Why am I sitting on hay?

Doing his most favorite thing other than walking around...standing up.

This fall I am this tall!

What do you mean I can't eat the hay?

More shots with his girlfriends. His boy-friend (boy that's a friend :)) hadn't gotten here yet.

Closest thing we got to a smile all day.

Here's his boy-friend now! Left to right, Kinley, Brendan, Ashlyn, and Harrison. Tim and I were cracking up at how they're all looking down and I think they all have a piece of hay in their hands. We have about 657903489321 pictures of these four and every one of them looks like this.

When we were walking in, I noticed they had wagons and thought it would be fun to put Brendan in one but we couldn't find one available. After we picked out our pumpkin, we found a wagon to put it in and I decided to put Brendan in the wagon as well. This was the result...

Think he liked it?!

Hope y'all are having a great week! I plan on doing a weekly re-cap tomorrow.

Nine Months!

2010-10-18T20:29:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned week before last, Brendan turned 9 months old on October 6th! We had his doctor's appointment that day. Here are his stats:

Height: 31 1/4 inches (off the charts!)
Weight: 23 pds 12.5 ou (90th percentile)
Head: 18 3/4 inches (97th percentile)

He's still a giant boy! He actually grew just about 4 inches from his 6 month appointment. The nurse thought she had measured wrong because it was such a huge jump but she measured again and, sure enough, it was right. He had to get his 3rd Hepatitis B shot and the first flu shot (he has to go back for a booster next month) - he got really upset with the shots. The day before his appointment, he pulled himself up for the first time :) I told the doctor how he wasn't crawling at all and had just recently started getting up on his knees but, as soon as he gets on his knees, he looks for a way to stand up. The doctor said he probably won't crawl, in his opinion, but he doesn't expect he will walk before his first birthday. I think he doesn't think he will walk before he turns one because he isn't yet able to stand on his own (like, without holding onto anything). He is, however, obsessed with holding onto our hands and walking around. He doesn't like to hold onto his walkers yet (we have two) and seems kind of scared to try, but wants to walk around with us all.day.long. He doesn't even like his toys anymore because all he wants to do is walk around! It's pretty exhausting and I'm anxious for him to walk on his own!

He still loves food and is starting to eat more and more "table" foods like we eat. Whenever we go to restaurants, we always give him tastes of what we eat. This week, I'm going to try to save a little bit of our dinner everynight for him to try the next day. He loves all kinds of fruit except mangos but still mostly only likes butternut squash, carrots, peas, and potato as far as vegetables go. I used to give him sweet potatoes a lot but when I mentioned to the doctor about him grunting when he poops (when we were having all those stomach issues with him) he said that sweet potatoes can cause constipation. So, I quit giving them to him and he barely grunts at all when he poops now! Like he might give a tiny grunt but no red face, no tons of grunting. It's crazy.

Speaking of the stomach issues, I can't remember if I mentioned it on here, I think I did, but our pediatrician told us to try going from the Nutramigen to Soy and then back to the sensitive. Basically, I did 4 days of soy formula while he was still on Prevacid 2x per day. Then, 4 days of soy formula with Prevacid 1x per day. Then, try the sensitive. He did fine all the way through and is now on sensitive formula with no problems! He is also eating yogurt and cheese again without any problems. The doctor said he could still have trouble when we switch to whole milk but we will just have to see when we get there.

Here's a couple pictures from his 9 month birthday...

I am going to post two more times this week. Once to tell about the past week and weekend and once to post pictures from our trip to the Pumpkin Patch weekend before last. And, I actually will do it. It's my goal for the week :)

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! I don't think I left anything out about his 9 months - let me know if I did!

Empty Promises

2010-10-05T09:59:00.008-05:00

I make a lot of promises about posting that I never fulfill, right?! Sorry I'm the worst blogger ever these past couple months. I don't know what my deal is!

On my computer, I have the pictures of Brendan divided into folders based on age. Somewhere around 6 or 7 months, I just had TOO many pictures and it was taking me forever to scroll through them to post them to the blog or get some printed or whatever, so I divided the pictures into folders - 0-2 months, 3-5 months, and 6-8 months so far. Today is Brendan's last day in the 6-8 month folder because he turns NINE months old tomorrow!

I asked Tim the other day if it felt like a really quick amount of time or like it really had been 9 months. He said he thought it felt like it actually had been 9 months. Sometimes, I think that it feels like we've never been without Brendan and sometimes I feel like the time has just flown. When I think about him being 1 year old in three months, though, that seems pretty crazy to me.

We haven't had much exciting stuff going on around here. He still doesn't crawl, so don't ask ;) He does roll around a lot to wherever he wants to go and he loves to stand up. He's just now in the past couple days getting up on his knees to stand and starting to act like he might be able to stand on his own. He can easily get up to standing by holding onto something if he's sitting on my knee, but he's still having difficulty if he's sitting on the floor. He walks around if we are holding onto his hands. We are buying him a walk-behind walker today (not one that you put them in, but one that they can practice walking behind). You can adjust the wheels to make the thing move slower or faster so we are hoping maybe that will help him start to get the hang of things and walk around on his own.

I will post sometime this week (no promises on dates!) about his 9 month appointment tomorrow and his new stats on height/weight/head.

Here are some pictures:

I'd like to watch some TV, Mom! (Actually, I don't let him watch TV yet unless it's just for a second when we're watching something on TV, but he loves to play with the remote)
I realized one day while I was sitting behind him, that he looks really cute from behind when he's standing up and I don't have any pictures of the back of him. So, here is one :)

Right before he started being able to stand up off of my knee, he did this one day:

That was the first time he had risen up off of my knee when playing and I was pretty excited about it!

One day he was having a lot of trouble going to sleep (kind of like right now as I am typing this - it took him almost an hour to fall asleep, he was alseep for 30 to 40 minutes and now he's kicking around in his crib. Ugh! He had been doing GREAT on naps), and he was just rolling around in the crib. I looked at the monitor when he had been quiet for awhile but thought he wasn't asleep because he always falls asleep on his stomach now. But, a few minutes later, I looked again, and he was still in that position. He had fallen asleep like this:

His leg is up on top of the bumper!
Lolli and Pops (my stepmom, Nancy, and Dad) and Uncle Alex, Aunt Emily and Aunt Caroline came to visit us a few weekends ago! Brendan had a great time with everyone but, of course, I was terrible about taking pictures.

Here are Brendan and Pops relaxing on Brendan's chair:

I know this one is kind of far away but it was too cute because they were both crossing their feet!

Hands in the mouth all.the.time.

Had to show off his adorable guitar shirt. It looks SO cute on him but I didn't realize I bought a 12-18 month size and it's already almost too small :( (he has to wear 18 or 24 month clothes now. He's huge!)

My camera kept messing up and making these pictures blurry but he hardly ever smiles for the camera anymore so I had to post them anyway.

This one wasn't blurry anymore. Not smiling as much but I think he looks like me when I was little in this picture and he NEVER looks like me!

The other night, I saw him asleep like this: (head on the bumper) I told Tim we need to get him a pillow!

We have all his toys upstairs now because it's a bigger area for him to move around in. This is how he ended up the other morning. (he's actually under the ottoman, not turned sideways)

Photoshoot with Daddy! He's always the funniest!

He looks so old in these pictures!

You can't see it as well as I'd hoped in this picture, but he had the most hilarious morning hair this morning. It was sticking out everywhere in the back.

Hi, mom! Just playing overhere, please stop taking pictures.

That's about all. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Lost and Found

2010-10-03T19:17:00.002-05:00

I promise I'll do a post with pictures tomorrow. I don't know why I didn't blog last week. I thought about it several times but just never took the time to do it. I've also been really bad about taking pictures the last couple weeks :(

Anyway, remember the yellow Lab we found that we named Carmen? My friend's mom was going to take her and give her a new home. I can't remember exactly, but I believe it was last Thursday (not this one that just past, the one before that) evening, our neighbors knocked on our door and had Carmen. She had dug out underneath our back gate (it is by the air conditioners and we never go to that side so I had no idea she'd been trying to escape). They saw her run out when they were leaving so they grabbed her and brought her back. Tim put a bunch of big rocks and bricks in front of the opening she dug out and we went to bed. The next morning, I went out to feed her and she was gone. She had actually moved ALL the rocks and bricks so she could get back out the opening she dug! We didn't really know what to do and we aren't allowed to post signs in our neighborhood, per our HOA rules. I e-mailed the vet we brought her to when we found her and told them the situation and I kept a close eye on Craiglist and on our Community website to see if anyone posted that they found her.

I never saw anything so we assumed that someone found her and decided to keep her or maybe she went back to her original owners. Then, this past Wednesday, I think, I was driving home from running errands and I saw a sign posted that said "FOUND DOG." I had a feeling it was her, so I pulled over and looked at the sign. Sure enough, there was a picture of her on it. I called Tim and he wanted me to call my friend to see if her mother-in-law still wanted Carmen because, if not, we didn't really have anything we could do with her and didn't really want to keep her long term while trying to find another home for her. Nothing against the sweet girl, she was a great dog, but we didn't want to constantly worry about her escaping. I called my friend and she called her mother-in-law and she said she would still take her. My friend told me she would call the number of the people that found her and arrange pick up.

Well, she called them, and it turns out that Carmen's original owners saw the sign and went and got her! The man who found Carmen told my friend that the owners came with their little boy to pick Carmen up and he was SO excited to have her back :) I was really, really happy that they were able to find her and she was able to go back home. Next time, I think I will just violate the HOA rules and put up signs because obviously the owners wouldn't have found her otherwise.

So, it started out as kind of a sad thing because we thought we lost her and didn't know what happened, but it ended as a wonderful thing because she got to go home!

Finally

2010-09-20T12:36:00.005-05:00

Where to start! I was exhausted all week last week because of my cold, so I never felt like posting (or working, or moving, or anything else for that matter ;)). We've had a busy couple of weeks and I don't want to overwhelm you with lots of words, so I'll mostly just narrate the pictures.

Thursday evening, I went out for a girl's night with one of my friends from the playgroup. We went to dinner and ended up closing down the restaurant! I pulled back into our driveway at 10:30 PM and, right as I was pulling in, a yellow lab ran past our house and around the corner. I'm always trying to rescue dogs because I just can't stand the thought of things happening to them, so I called it back around the corner and brought it inside. I figured out it was a girl and I gave her some food and water and put her in the backyard. She was acting upset about being back there, so I got worried she was on her way home and brought her back to the front porch. Right when we went outside, a car drove by and she ran after. I thought that was the end of it and she was gone. I went back to our room and a couple minutes later went back to turn the front porch light off and she was sitting on the front porch. I put her back in the backyard and we brought her to the vet the next morning to fill out some "found" papers and figure out what our options were. The girl at the vet didn't want us to take her to the animal shelter, so she e-mailed the information to surrounding vets and suggested I put the information on Craigslist. I also posted it on my Facebook. She's about 1 year old and very good, not as hyper as labs usually are at that age and she's been lots of fun. I sent an e-mail to that friend I had been to dinner with to ask her if she knew anyone that might want a lab in case we didn't find the owners. No one has ever contacted us about her and I haven't seen any signs looking for a lost lab.

We would keep her except that I am allergic to short-haired dogs and we had already put a deposit down on a Wheaten Terrier puppy (Google them, they're hilarious :)) because they are a little bigger dog like Tim wants, but they are hypoallergenic and they are supposed to be one of the best dogs you could have with kids. We have been growing attached to Carmen (that's what we named her) since she's been here, but we just felt like three dogs and kids would be a little too much. Luckily, my friend called me today and her mother-in-law wants to take Carmen!! She has been thinking about getting a lab and got the e-mail that my friend sent to all her contacts and decided she wants to take her. I'm SO excited she is going to have a good home and I will be able to continue to get updates on how she's doing.
Over the past two weeks, we have become very interested in cows. Brendan loves this squirt two cow he can chew on and he also has a little water-proof material book that has a dog, a cat, and a cow in it and he lovesss to look at the cow. In fact, he usually says "ca" or something like that everytime he sees the cow (and he doesn't do it when he sees the dog and cat). Kind of weird to think his first word might be "cow," but kind of cute, too :) (this was right after his bath is why his hair looks all crazy)

My mom, stepdad, and Nanny came to visit a couple weekends ago. Brendan thinks his PeePaw is awesome and especially loved getting to ride on his shoulders.

Of course, he also loves his Nanny and CiCi tons, too, even if he never wants to cooperate by smiling in pictures!

We played naked a little bit and also started to cross our feet ALL the time. Anytime he's sitting down now, he almost always crosses his feet. This is the book I mentioned above with the dog, cat, and cow.

We like to stand, A LOT, and would prefer to stand all the time. It's very difficult on Mommy because he still won't pull himself up so I have to stand him up on something and then sit close in case he topples over. I pretty much have to force him to sit down sometimes so I can get something done! (I think he looks old in this picture...what happened to my baby?!)

He thinks it's hilarious when I say "oopsie daisy!"

We had a playdate with some of our friends at our house. He is starting to get jealous of other people playing with his toys, especially that Leap Frog table he is standing at in the picture above. Everytime another kid would come over and pull up on the table, he would scream. Awesome. Hopefully he gets past that soon.

The day before we found Carmen, we were walking with Brendan and found two dogs running down the main street in our neighborhood. Luckily, these dogs had tags with their names, addresses, and a phone number on them so we quickly found the owners. They weren't at home at the time so we had to bring the dogs (Freckles and Buster) back to the house for about 45 minutes. They were cute but Tucker was not too fond of them.

We've played with puzzles and done LOTS of tummy time but are still not interested in crawling at all. He's become a little more consistent with rolling around to get to things and also will move his feet as if walking when we are holding under his arms (he won't hold our hands).

And we've posed for some pictures for Mommy, still being VERY difficult about allowing Mommy to catch him smiling in a picture. Doesn't his shirt make him look like a little man? :)

We stayed in town this past weekend and went to church on Sunday. It was Brendan's first time in the nursery and I think he did great. He was getting fussy when I went and picked up him, but they said he rolled around a bunch and also had a girlfriend haha. This week, I'm trying to do lots of catching up on work.

Hope y'all have had a great two weeks! Sorry for the long time with posting!

CoughCough*

2010-09-13T15:41:00.003-05:00

Sorry I never posted last week. With the Labor Day holiday, I got thrown off and just never found a chance to take the time to blog. And, yesterday I came down with some sort of sinus infection and feel like death today.

I promise I'll blog sometime this week!

A Week At Home

2010-09-01T09:34:00.005-05:00

As I mentioned in one of my posts last week, we were trying to stay home most of the week because I didn't want to have to fill up with gas until Friday and I only had a quarter of a tank. I tried to come up with some fun and "different" stuff for us to do at home since we aren't used to staying home so much. Here are some pictures of what we did.

I filled up my bathtub with water and put Brendan and I in our bathing suits and we "swam" and played in the water. He loved it!
We went to the park and went down some slides for the first time. I went down the slides with him and then, once, on this slide I just held him from the side and helped him go down. He wasn't scared but he was less than impressed with the experience.

He played naked one day which I haven't let him do since he was only a couple months old and had bad diaper rash. When I put him down on all the towels I laid on the carpet, he promptly peed on my foot. Good times. Luckily, he didn't pee again after that. He's channeling Matthew McConnaughey in this picture, a la playing the bongos naked (but he wasn't high on pot ;)).

Wayyy back in May, I bought a kit to make a garden/stepping stone for my Nanny's garden for her birthday. I realized this week I had forgotten to make it all this time, so one afternoon we did that. I know it's not the greatest thing, but I did get a really good handprint!

We also played outside with his toys one morning. He really loves being outside.

He played with paper one day (all the ads from the newspaper that weren't made of newspaper material).

Of course, he wanted to eat it and I had to keep taking it out of his mouth, but he likes the sound paper makes when you crinkle it so I knew he would enjoy it.

We practiced playing ball and rolling the ball back and forth to eachother.

He got his first toothbrush and likes to "brush" his teeth throughout the day.

On Saturday evening, Nanny and Papa came and spent the night on their way home from Red River, NM. They brought Brendan a really cool camo chair. I couldn't get him to look at me but here's a picture of him in it.

The next morning, we went to eat at Cracker Barrel before they left. Here's Brendan and Papa chatting before we left for breakfast :) Brendan LOVES his Papa (and Nanny, too, of course!) and loves to look at him all the time.

Last but not least, we played in the grass, which is another thing Brendan is veryyy fond of. I don't understand it because the grass itches my legs, but he thinks it's fun to rub his legs around in the grass and pull the grass up out of the ground.

That's about all. Hope everyone had a fun weekend!

Shiny and New to Me

2010-08-23T20:31:00.007-05:00

I actually am posting, like I promised :) I forgot to mention that we also got to visit my friend Lindsey and her new baby, Caroline, when we were on our way back to Fort Worth from Houston last weekend. I believe I've mentioned before that I went and visited Lindsey in the hospital a few weeks ago. It was great to get to see them again and hold a tiny baby. Makes me miss having one!

Here is the cool new toy Brendan got from Nana/Brian/Shannon. (that's where I got the blog post from...it's shiny and new to him!) It is a Little Tykes bench and the activity table on the top has buttons you push that make either music or piano key noises. It also has a mirror, a cylinder filled with balls that you can rotate to make noise and two spinning toys. The opposite side of it (the activity part flips over) is a dry erase board, which will be super fun when Brendan gets a little older. He really likes it and it's very cute to see him sitting on the bench!
Happy boy with his new toy

Obviously this isn't the best picture I've ever taken, but I put it on here to remind me to tell you that Brendan has started "jumping" in his jumper finally! I put jumping in quotations because he actually does more of a little jig with his feet, but he is doing something instead of just spinning around. Tim calls it his "Lord of the Dance" move. I have a cute video...just have to figure out how to get it off my camera (I really need to watch the CD that came with it).

Brendan's Poppee and Maggie got him some new shoes. His very first pair of Nikes! Aren't they adorable!? They are a little big because I told them a bigger size than he wears now so he would have some room to grow in them.

The most hilarious part, though, is how they looked on him whenever I took a picture. I'm sure the angle of the picture greatly exaggerates it, but I was falling over laughing at how huge they look on him. I also think he looks very grown up and old in this picture.

Just a cute one to throw in the mix!

I also stand now, in case you didn't know. I might fall over sometimes, but I'm still learning. I don't do it on my own, but I'm pretty good at it when mommy or daddy stands me up.

Aren't I most adorable in my overalls?

Did you say I'm cute? Well, duh.

Brendan also started sitting on his own like a big boy in the tub. He was getting too big for his bath seat and we still have trouble with the duck being slippery, so I just got a bath mat and tried him in the tub. He seems to really like it.

We finally hung his swing up on the front porch and he LOVES it. Yesterday, he actually started crying when I took him out of it. Today he almost fell asleep in it.

Not much happened last week. Thursday, I went with a friend to see Eat, Pray, Love and for dinner at Gloria's in Colleyville. I really liked the movie and I didn't think I was going to. It was nice to have some girl talk and a little time away. Thanks, Tim! We spent the whole weekend in Fort Worth just hanging out and mostly at home. It was a nice relaxing weekend. This week, I have a quarter of a tank of gas that I am trying to make last until Friday so we are spending lots of time at home and trying to think of things to keep us occupied. I had a change of plans and instead of leaving on Thursday, I'll be staying in town and my Nanny and Papa will be coming here on Saturday to spend the night with us and see Brendan.

Hope y'all have a great week!

Finally

2010-08-23T07:49:00.006-05:00

I'm finally posting!! Sorry for the long break without any weekly/picture posts. I've been busy and tired and just haven't found the time. I'm going to try to make up for it by doing TWO posts today and showing you lots of cute pictures. I'll start with what we did weekend before this past one and that week before that.

We started out the week with Tim's birthday. He turned 28 this year and it was his first birthday as a daddy :) We went and ate at BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse (if you haven't been there and you happen to have one in your area, GO to it! It's soooo good). We got some avocado eggrolls and shared a deep dish pizza and then came home for cake and presents.

Daddy and Brendan on the big day
Tim requested a cookie cake for his birthday this year. It's kind of hard to tell with the candle,s but it's a poker cake with cards and poker chips on it. The candles would NOT blow it. It took forever haha

The day Brendan had to go to our pediatrician for his tummy issues, they called me back and told me to bring him in right after I put him down for a nap. I went in to get him and found this...Oh, and this is just with the flash on my camera, I have one I took right before this without the flash and it's pitch black. I couldn't believe how bright the flash made it! This is the first time he's ever slept snuggled with his teddy. Too cute :)

On Friday, we left in the morning and went to Beaumont to visit Tim's mom (Brendan's Nana) and dad and stepmom (Brendan's Poppee and Maggie). We got to eat some good Mexican food and Brendan got to spend some quality time with his grandparents. It was a nice trip! Saturday, we drove to Houston along with Tim's mom to spend the night with his brother, Brian, sister-in-law, Shannon, and nieces, Kate and Carolyn. Kate's 5th birthday was the day after Tim's and her party was going to be on Sunday. Unforunately, it wasn't going to be until later in the day and since we had such a long drive we weren't going to be able to be there for the actual party. So, we went down the day before to celebrate with her and hang out.

Kate showing Brendan how to work her cool keyboard.

Brendan showing off his skills - Kate was very excited about how well she taught him :)

Kate helping Brendan sing along to the music.

By the way, Brendan just loved Kate. Everytime he would see her he would smile and she would make him laugh. It was very cute. She asked us why he kept smiling at her and we said "because he likes you." And she responded "I think he's always smiling at me because I'm so beautiful." I think that was it, too!

More of Brendan's Captain Adorable pajamas. He was showing us how he could fly with his cape on the back of them.

Brendan with Nana before we had to leave.

Nana has a fun new dog named Kirby and Brendan was really chatting it up with him in his cage. There was a birthday balloon nearby so we had to take the opportunity to hook it on Brendan's wrist for a little photo op.

Hey, Kirby, what are you doing in there? Come out! (Right after this, he started leaning wayyyy forward holding onto the bars and going to the bathroom, complete with grunts. It was pretty hilarious)

I'll have some pictures from this past week and weekend later today. We had a great time visiting Nana, Poppee, Maggie, Brian, Shannon, Kate, and Carolyn and hope we get to see them again real soon! I also have some cute pictures of Brendan playing with a cool new toy he got courtesy of Nana, Brian and Shannon. He gets some of Kate and Carolyn's old toys when they are done with them but they are good as new to him!

Hope y'all had a great weekend! I promise not to take as long to post anymore!

The Appointment

2010-08-20T10:09:00.002-05:00

Warning, this is probably going to be a LONG post!

We had our appointment with the Nurse Practitioner at the Gastroenterologist yesterday afternoon. Prior to this, like I said, Brendan had not been on any solids since Monday and had only had the hypoallergenic formula. His poop had become totally watery diarrhea (sorry, gross, I know) because of only being on that formula and so it was hard to tell if it was still black or not but I thought it looked more brown by yesterday morning. Anyway, we went to the appointment at 3:00 and I really did not like the NP at all. She pretty much totally got on my nerves. She came to the conclusion (after talking with us for less than 5 minutes) that he FOR SURE has a milk protein allergy and will need to stay on the hypoallergenic formula and avoid all dairy products in solids. She did say most babies outgrow this allergy by the age of 1 and there was no reason to think he couldn't be started on regular milk at age 1.

She said she did not believe at all that he had a bleeding ulcer because that is very rare in babies. This was one thing I actually agreed with her on because, when I tried googling it this past weekend, I couldn't find any information on ulcers in babies. However, after thinking about what our pediatrician said, I think that he was actually saying he thought the lining of Brendan's stomach got irritated and caused a bleed, rather than that he actually had an ulcer. I'm not sure if he just used the wrong word or if he was just trying to explain it to us.

Here is why she annoyed me and I am uncomfortable with her diagnosis.

1. She had no prior medical history of Brendan whatsoever. She didn't even know how much he weighed prior to them weighing him at this appointment. She told me he has had this allergy his entire life. I don't believe that's true and here's why:

I told her he had a lot of gas when he was little, which she said was a sign of this milk protein allergy. But, I tried eliminating dairy from my diet whenever I was breastfeeding and it didn't make a difference. Our pediatrician said babies often just have to work out their systems because they've never had food, etc before when they are born and just have to get everything worked out. Sure enough, Brendan's gas decreased dramatically, pretty much becoming non-existent, after a few months and he had no gas when he was on the sensitive formula. His gas only returned when I put him on the Earth's Best Organic formula which was full lactose.
He's never had a black stool in his life until we started the Earth's Best, signaling to me that the problem didn't start until then. When I put him back on the Sensitive, he went back to normal for awhile and then the blood came back. To me, that means that the Earth's Best was irritating him, it got a little better whenever I switched him back, but the irritation was still there so he had bleeding.
She said the blood in his stool was caused from constipation. This was AFTER I told her that, prior to only being on formula this week, he pooped about 3 times a day. When she said he was constipated, I said "he was constipated when he pooped 3 times per day?!" and she just said "yes." I'm sorry, it seems a little strange to me that he could be constipated when he was going three times per day and a lot of babies don't even go ONE time per day and aren't considered constipated.
I don't know if I've mentioned it here before, but Brendan is a bigggg grunter whenever he poops. This started right before we started him on solids. I asked the pediatrician about it and he said if I didn't notice it only occuring whenever I ate something specific (this is when I was still pumping and giving him breastmilk) or notice it with a specific solid whenever he was eating solids, that that might just be the way he goes. He said some babies are just like that and it's not abnormal. So Tim told the NP at the appointment yesterday about Brendan grunting when he goes. Her response was "yes, that's because he's constipated because of the allergy" (by the way, not to be gross again, but his poops are very, very rarely hard or small pebbles like he is constipated. They are usually a very normal consistency). Well, she gave us the go-ahead to give him solids again as long as he didn't have any dairy. So, last night, Tim gave him carrots, sweet potatoes, and a plum/cherry purree for dinner - all of which I made myself so I know that they have no dairy whatsoever in them. This morning, after Brendan gets up, he's sitting on the floor playing and what does he do? He starts grunting when he's pooping (Oh, and his poop wasn't hard at all, it was totally soft). Hmmm...so he still grunts when he's not having any dairy and hasn't had any for the past five or 6 days? Strange....

Ok, I realize it probably sounds like I am being snotty and that I am possibly ungrateful for the fact that he has a minor allergy rather than an ulcer. That is not the case AT ALL. I am extremely happy that, if something is wrong, it is just an allergy and he doesn't have some terrible medical condition or a bleeding ulcer in his tummy. But, if he doesn't actually have an allergy at all and just had an irritation that will get better (or might even already be better) and he doesn't have to be on special formula until he turns 1 and doesn't have to completely avoid dairy until he turns 1, I would rather go ahead and know that. It doesn't help the situation for me when I feel like the NP just latched onto that conclusion that he has an allergy and wouldn't listen to any of Brendan's history that might tend to point to the fact that that might not be the case. She didn't even act like it was a possibility that he could have just had an irritation.

I do realize she likely has more experience in the area of digestion than my pediatrician but he knows a heck of a lot more about Brendan's history than she does. So, I think what we decided to do is go back to our doctor in about a week or a week and a half, bring a dirty diaper for him to test for blood (she said the diaper I brought from earlier in the day yesterday wasn't fresh enough and she just stuck her finger up Brendan's bottom then rubbed her finger on a card that apparently came back negative for blood....which didn't seem as accurate as testing an actual diaper and which my pediatrician told me last week wasn't as accurate as testing a dirty diaper) and, if it comes back negative, talk to him about my hesitation with her diagnosis and talk to him about possibly introducing the sensitive formula again and seeing if Brendan has a reaction to it. I by no means want to cause Brendan any pain but re-introducing the sensitive to really see if he had an allergy was my pediatrician's first recommendation when we went to him last Friday - get the irritation healed and then try reintroducing the sensitive and, if he has a problem, we will know he has an allergy.

If he has an allergy, it's no big deal and we will go back to the hypoallergenic formula and avoid any dairy in his diet until we try it when he's 1. But, like I said above, if he doesn't have an allergy, I think it would be better to go ahead and figure that out so he can start having dairy (like cheese and yogurt) slowly and then adjusting to regular milk won't be as big of a leap when he turns 1. Oh, and because of the fact he was irritated by the full lactose formula, I do admit he probably has a sensitivity to lactose. But, if it's just a sensitivity, that's what the sensitive formula is for.

Ok, if you're still with me after ALL that, I'd love to hear your opinions. If you think I'm being totally unreasonable, by all means, tell me! I'm not going to be offended because I realize I'm not wanting him to have this allergy so I may not be reacting appropriately. Sorry it took me so long to give y'all an update and sorry I haven't done a fun weekly post this week, but I promise, promise, promise I will this weekend!

Prayer Request

2010-08-16T10:54:00.003-05:00

I will do a weekly post tonight or tomorrow at the latest. For now, so that my weekly post isn't the length of a novel, I wanted to do a separate "prayer request" post.

Whenever I was still breastfeeding/pumping, if we ever supplemented with formula, I gave Brendan a Sensitive formula (Similac Sensitive or Up & Up Sensitive (which is the Target brand)). I did this because he had a lot of gas issues as a baby and a lot of things say babies have trouble digesting milk protiens so the sensitive formula helps with that. Anyway, when I stopped pumping, we originally continued giving him the Sensitive formula. I decided I wanted to switch him to an organic formula because I was under the impression that they used a different process than regular formulas to add DHA/ARA into the formula. By the way, thats a WHOLE other post that I plan on doing. *Stepping off my soap box* So, we switched him to Earth's Best Organic formula, which is not a sensitive formula. I figured that he wasn't having the gas issues anymore because his gas had decreased dramatically and I talked with the doctor about how to gradually introduce the regular formula.

After trying the Earth's Best for a few weeks, I noticed that Brendan's gas had come back with a vengance. He wasn't seeming like he was necessarily uncomfortable, but he had A LOT of gas. Then, I found out that the process Earth's Best uses to put the DHA in the formula is the exact same as non-organic formulas. Also, while he was on the Earth's Best, his poop turned completely black. I had read before and learned during a class when I was pregnant that formula-fed babies often have black stool because of all the iron in the formula. I figured that the regular formula had more iron in it and that's why his poop turned black on the regular formula when it wasn't like that on the sensitive. But, Tim was uncomfortable with his poop being black all the time because he felt like we wouldn't know if something ended up being wrong with Brendan (like internal bleeding, which can manifest itself as black poop). Because of these things, I decided to switch him back to the Sensitive formula.

When we switched back to the Sensitive, his poop initially went back to the way it was before the Earth's Best (which, in case you really wanted to know, is brown and/or the color of whatever solids he ate that day). Then, it all the sudden turned black again. Oh, and I'm not talking sort of black. I'm talking black as night, the color of tar, the blackest thing you can think of black. We felt like something might be wrong because he hadn't had black poop since switching back to Sensitive and he had been really fussy that week, which isn't usualy for him, so I called the doctor. The nurse called me and told me to go ahead and come in just in case, though it probably would turn out to be nothing. When I originally went in last Thursday, they didn't tell me I needed to bring a poopy diaper with me and Brendan hadn't pooped on the way over there. They have to have a dirty diaper because the way they test for blood is to test the actual poop. They ended up just telling me to go home and bring a dirty diaper back on Friday.

When he woke up Friday morning, he had pooped sometime over the course of the night. It wasn't nearly as black as it had been earlier in the week and the day before, but I went ahead and saved it and then decided to wait a couple hours to see if he would go again. When he hadn't gone again, I called and asked if I could bring in the diaper from overnight and they said 'yes.' I brought him in, they tested it for blood, and it came back positive.

The doctor had me go over the whole process of switching formulas and about how fussy Brendan had been. For the first time the night before, he had actually had a lot of trouble sleeping and kept pulling his legs up underneath him and putting his arms on his tummy like it was hurting. I told the doctor all this and he said he believed that the regular formula had irritated Brendan's stomach and caused a bleeding ulcer. He knew the bleeding had to be in his upper intestines or stomach because if it was in his lower intestines, it would have come out the color of blood instead of black. He told me to try two different hypoallergenic formulas (Almenium and Nutramigen), figure out which one Brendan liked and give him that for two weeks instead of the Sensitive formula. In addition, he told us to stay away from cheese and yogurt for the next two weeks and he prescribed us Prevacid to help neutralize Brendan's stomach acid and allow the ulcer to heal. He also told me to make an appointment with a Gastroenterologist (sp?) for Brendan but that he felt there was only a 10% chance we would make it to that appointment because it usually takes awhile to get in and he thought the measures we were taking over the next two weeks would solve the problem. If the black stool went away in the next two weeks, then we would try going back on the sensitive formula. If nothing happened, his stomach just got irritated and we healed it and everything is fine. If the black stool returned, then we would know he had a milk protein allergy and we would have to take measures to watch what he eats.

Of course, Brendan wouldn't drink either one of the hypoallergenic formulas unless I put juice in them. So, I called the doctor (before I figured out he would drink it with juice) and they said to use soy formula. I looked online and found out that a lot of kids that have milk protein allergies also have soy allergies. Also, I was worried that the soy wouldn't be as effective in solving the problem since the doctor hadn't recommended it in the first place. In addition, Brendan has been having trouble sleeping and doing the same stuff like his stomach hurts since Thursday night. Because of that, I went ahead and called the doctor again this morning and asked about the soy being as effective, told them he would drink the hypoallergenic only with juice, and told them about his sleeping problems. They also called and asked me about how he was eating (which, he hasn't been eating as much since this happened) and I told them about that. They called me back and told me it would actually be better to give him the hypoallergenic formula with some juice instead of the soy and they also told me to take him off of ALL solids, except I can give him rice cereal.

I was able to get him an appointment with the Nurse Practitioner at the Gastroenterologist THIS Thursday at 3:00 so we aren't having to wait as long as we thought.

Anyway, after all this, I just wanted to ask that y'all say a little prayer that everything is okay and we figure out exactly what the problem is, get it fixed, and that it is not too serious. Oh, and that he doesn't have a whole lot of trouble not being able to have any solids because this kid LOVES food and loves his solids.

Hope y'all had a great weekend!

The Return of a Name

2010-08-09T20:46:00.006-05:00

Now that only certain people can read the blog, I can finally start calling "Toots" by his real name! Brendan turned 7 months old on Friday! I did his measurements on Wednesday and he weighed 22 pounds, was 28.5 inches long, and his head was 18.5 inches. That's right about 95th percentile for weight and height and it's off the chart for head size...haha, baby has a big head!

Here are his seven month pictures...

Daddy making Brendan laugh when we got home from visiting CiCi, Peepaw, and Nanny in Boerne this weekend.

This is the most bittersweet story about these geese. The river in Boerne is right next to a busy street and the ducks/geese often cross the street at the risk of getting run over by cars. There is a restaurant and bar across the street from the rive that is called Dodging Duck because of this predicament :) The momma duck in this picture (I believe she's in the back) built her nest in the yard area in front of the Dodging Duck. The owners of it were worried the mom and babies would end up getting run over if they were constantly crossing back and forth from the river to their nest. So, they built a fence around the nest and put a baby pool in the fence for the momma and babies to use until the babies got big enough to stay across the street. The daddy duck would cross the street everyday to visit the mom and babies but he wouldn't stay within the fence. One day, he got run over while crossing the street. A local vet took him to his office and tried to nurse him back to health. It looked like he was going to make it, but he had a spinal cord injury and ended up taking a turn for the worse and they had to put him to sleep. Right after he got hit, a new "daddy" duck stepped in and started visiting the mom and the babies. Now that they are back across the street in the river, he has stuck with them and they are a little family! I know it's such a sad story that the real daddy got run over, but I thought it was so sweet that a new daddy stepped in.

Brendan took his first trip to feed the ducks. He sat and watched while we threw bread at them.

Family picture to commemorate the first trip to the river with Brendan.

Watching the ducks

Brendan and his CiCi

New shirt CiCi bought him. I think it's hilarious :)

Swinging on the back porch in Boerne. It was sunny outside so we were trying to cover his face using Daddy's hat. His PJs say "Captain Adorable" and they have a little cape attached to the back of them!!! (Pink swing because of the other grandkid. We have a blue and red one at our house but we just found a place to hang it yesterday, so we'll be doing that this week)

Last week, Brendan woke up from a nap and this is what his hair looked like:

Playing in his cool alien PJs

Spikey hair

Haha this picture cracks me up...I think he looks so cute, but kind of cracked out at the same time ;)

Last week, we also had our first playdate at our house with our playgroup. We had 8 moms and kids come. Five of them were right around Brendan's age (3 boys and 2 girls) and three of them were a little older (17 months, 21 months and 22 months). It turned out really great and I met two new people who I hadn't known before. We are going to one of their houses tomorrow for a swimming playdate. It's really great to meet people with kids around the age of Brendan and have other moms to chat with.

Friday morning, we left for Boerne (outside of San Antonio). When we got there, Tim went and played golf with my stepdad and my mom, Nanny, Brendan and I went and did some shopping. We celebrated Tim's birthday a little early on Friday night. Saturday, Tim and I went and spent part of the day on our own while they kept Brendan. Sunday, we headed back. There was some unexpected traffic so it ended up taking longer than normal.

Brendan was exhausted and was asleep by 7:00 PM. He woke up this morning for a minute at 5:30 AM then we heard him at 6:45 AM and thought he was ready to get up for the day. He ended up falling back asleep and slept until 8:15! He never sleeps that late. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it last week, but he's sleeping on his tummy exclusively now. He actually seems to sleep even better on his stomach, which is funny since he hated being on it so much before he started rolling. He is starting to bring his legs up underneath him when he's on his stomach, so I think he's getting on the road to crawling. I'm actually really excited about that!

Tim's birthday is Wednesday. I can't wait for him to get his gifts! I'll post a picture after he opens. It will be his first birthday as a dad :)

That's all I can think of right now...Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Welcome!

2010-08-09T08:51:00.002-05:00

Thanks for accepting your invitation to read my blog now that it's private! I'll be doing a weekly post later today, so check back!

Invites

2010-08-08T18:20:00.001-05:00

The invites for the private blog will be going out within the next 3 hours. If you don't get one by the end of today, then I don't have your email address! Please send it to me if you want to keep reading at throneofthornes@gmail.com

Last Post

2010-08-03T20:31:00.003-05:00

This will be my last post on the public blog. Please remember, if you want to keep reading come Sunday, you need to e-mail me your e-mail address at throneofthornes@gmail.com. I have family and of course anyone whose already e-mailed me, but other than that, I'm not even counting on all my followers wanting to read and, even if you are a follower, that doesn't mean I have access to your e-mail address to sign you up. I will be sending out the invites Sunday night. If you haven't gotten anything by Monday morning, then I didn't have your e-mail address and you need to e-mail me.

Last week, my friend Lindsey from law school had her baby, C. She is ADORABLE! I was so excited to get to drive down to Waco for about an hour to see them at the hospital and meet her. Can't wait to watch her grow up. Also, my friend Morgan (we've been friends since 3rd grade) had triplets on Thursday! Two boys and a girl and they're all doing wonderfully. We also had a fun weekend. Saturday, we got together with our friends Stephanie and Ross and went to Joe T. Garcia's. Stephanie was in law school with me and was my PC Partner. She and Ross live in Dallas but we have a hard time finding a chance to get together, so it was great to see them! Toots got a little cranky by the end of the dinner because we went kind of late, had to wait to get seated, and had to wait awhile for our food, but he was fine once he got home and in his bath. Sunday, we went to Waco to bring my dad and stepmom's dog back to them (we had been keeping her while they were on vacation). We had a nice visit with them. Tomorrow, I'm hosting my first playdate at our house. As of right now, there will be 8 moms and their kids, but most of the time, people end up cancelling at the last minute, so it might not end up being quite that many. I'm really excited about it!

I'm leaving you with lots of pictures....

Playing this afternoon after his nap. Toots has been taking AWESOME naps the past couple days (yesterday he took a 3 hour and 20 minute nap! Today he took a 2 hour nap and a 1.5 hour nap - he never takes two long naps!) and he's also been sleeping later the past few days - he usually doesn't wake up until after 7 now whereas before he was waking up around 6 but we didn't get him out of bed until 7. He got some cool mesh basketball shorts from Carter's so he could be like his daddy....Doesn't he look so grown up?!
Kind of blurry, but I thought this picture was sweet. His hair sticks up like that all.the.time. Even though I brush it when it's wet to try to make it lay down.

Happy boy! He loves chewing and sucking on this starfish.

Cute new PJs I got him last week at Carter's. These are 12 month size and I'm pretty sure they won't fit him in a month!

Picture of how he was sleeping the other night....He's started sleeping on his stomach, and he was sleeping face down! Very scary for me, but just as I decided I should go in there, he turned his head to the side. Crazy baby
The remote is his most favorite thing to play with (other than my keys) and especially to chew on
Just thought he looked sweet in this picture. This is the only smocked bubble outfit he has because his daddy doesn't like them. Doesn't he look like a doll, though?

That's about all, folks! I want to thank all of you for keeping up with us on this blog. I really hope that you will e-mail me and continue reading. Going private does add one step of having to log in to read the blog, but you can tell it to "remember" you and you will very, very rarely have to log in (it usually makes me log in to blogs I read that are private only if I have signed out of my account or maybe every couple months otherwise). If you decide not to keep reading, thanks for having kept up with us so far and we wish you the best! For those of you that are going to keep reading, see you on Monday for a new post!

Hi, STEPH

2010-07-28T16:22:00.002-05:00

I'd like to address a comment I received from "STEPH" on my post about my blog going private. I'm addressing this publicly instead of just commenting on her comment in case any of you other readers who never comment feel this way.

STEPH,

I am not, in any way, playing the victim here. I'm sorry that you feel that way but you've got the wrong idea. I realize I put my blog out there. It's linked in my signature on The Bump and The Nest. I also did a guest blog for newparent.com and my blog is linked on there. I never, ever tried to "hide" my blog from people reading it, nor did I EVER say that I did. As I believe I stated in my post, I was super excited when I first saw that so many people were reading it. But, the fact that I put my blog out there originally does not mean, in any remote way, that I can't decide that I am uncomfortable with who is viewing it NOW and decide to make it private. Understand?

When I started my blog, I didn't have a kid. When I had my kid, I still wanted people to be able to read it and tried to know who was reading it the best I could by encouraging comments and asking people who followed my blog to let me know who they were. When I added the feedtracker to my blog and realized that there were people coming from all over the world looking at the blog who were never commenting and I had no idea who they were, I decided it was better for my family to take the blog private. Before doing this, I added a NUMBER of security measures to protect my information and my pictures and my child while still allowing whoever wanted to read the blog to read it. Then, I decided that wasn't enough.

Playing the victim? Hardly. I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to say that it's sad or unfortunate that I have to take the blog private because there are creepy people out there. Don't you think it's sad that there are people who steal other's pictures and make up their lives? Don't you think it's sad that there are child molesters out there who might use pictures of children on blogs for disgusting purposes? I know I do. I never said I was a victim in this, I never said I didn't try to make my blog publicly accessible and put it out there. However, none of those things take away my right to make this blog private when I decide it's necessary.

Just Kidding (Re: Blog Future)

2010-07-26T16:03:00.006-05:00

Ok, just kidding. Toots is still sleeping right now so I decided to go ahead and do the big announcement about the "future" of the blog that I alluded to here.

That's right, folks, I'm going private. I know I've said countless times that I didn't want to take this blog private and, really, I don't. But, every day, multiple times a day, someone from another country that I've never even heard of, visits my blog. When this first started happening, I thought "COOL! People alllll around the world are reading my blog!!! (squeeeealllllll)" But, then I started thinking "Wait. I've never even heard of that country, much less ever met (or "met") anyone from there. Weird." And now I'm just officially weary of it. Call me over-protective or whatever, but it kind of creeps me out that there is a possibility some weirdo/psycho is reading my blog and looking at pictures of my family.

Secondly, I don't like uploading my pictures through Flickr first - and it has a MB liper month so I can't even upload all the pictures I post on here - and I don't like having to go to picnik.com and watermark, even though I think that's cool. And, most of all, I don't like using a nickname for my child. Yes, nicknames are fun, but I pretty much always accidentally write his real name first and then have to go back and delete and write his nickname. It's a lot of effort and I just want to be able to say his name sometimes for goodness sake. But I can't. Because there are crazy people out there who steal your pictures and your kid's names and pretend they have your life. And that's unfortunate but I can't do anything to change it.

So, the conclusion I've finally come to is that I'm taking the blog private. I realize this is a tiny hassle because you have to log in, but you can ask it to "remember" you so you don't have to log in everytime. And, if that's too much of a hassle to you or you just don't like to read private blogs, that's fine. While I absolutely love, love, love the fact that you people read my blog, it is a chronicle of my life to look back on one day. I want to write stuff that is helpful to people, but if it's too much trouble for you to log in, then you don't have to take the time to read it.

People who don't have a Google/Gmail account, FEAR NOT! Thanks to my friend, Lacey, who is also considering taking her blog private, I have a solution for you. I will have an e-mail address just for people who don't have Google/Gmail accounts to be able to use to login to read the blog.

Here's what I need you to do. I need you to e-mail me at throneofthornes@gmail.com (or, if you know my other e-mail address, feel free to e-mail me there) and tell me you'd like to be able to read the blog when I make it private and give me your gmail address so I can send you an invite. Or, if you don't have a Gmail address, tell me that you don't have one and you need me to give you the Gmail address I've made for you to read the blog as well as the password and I'll be happy to do that.

I do hope that those of you who enjoy reading this blog will e-mail me and tell me that you want to continue reading it. I love your comments and I do love knowing people read, but I'm tired of all the run-around I'm having to do just to be able to keep writing publicly. I'm going to leave this post up for the next two weeks to give you plenty of time to e-mail me.

Hope y'all are having a wonderful week so far and I hope to hear from you :)

I Can't Believe It!

2010-07-26T15:04:00.006-05:00

We had a couple of "I Can't Believe Its" happen at the Thorne house this week. One, Toots started rolling over from back to tummy finally!! And, Toots had a tooth break through :) It is still just broken through the gums at the top, the rest of the tooth hasn't popped up, yet, so I don't have a picture. He wasn't grumpy before it happened (which was yesterday), just seemed to sleep more, but today he is SUPER grumpy and still sleepy so I don't know if the second one is going to come through soon or what.

On another note, we also got our first-time homebuyers tax credit check in the mail! Yay! We got to get some things we've been wanting to get for the house, including getting tile put in the upstairs bathroom and utility room (that's happening next Monday), getting a TV stand for the living room, a table for the entryway, a TV for upstairs, and some other small things. We also used some of it to get Tucker's teeth cleaned.

Nothing much else is going on. I'm still doing P90X (I know, I never did a Skinny Tuesday update) and I'm feeling like I'm starting to look better and I'm eating a lot healthier, but the scale isn't moving :(

Toots is also moving his legs a little bit underneath him and back out like he is trying to crawl. He can also stand up for a couple seconds on his own if you stand him up against something he can hold on to. And, he had his first grilled cheese sandwich this weekend when we were out to lunch and I hadn't brought anything for him to eat. He liked it a lot :) He won't be getting a lot of those, but it's nice to know we have options if we're out and I happen to not have something for him to eat.

Here's some pictures.

Riding his horse, with Daddy's help, of course :)
I want that Coke so.bad. (Don't worry, he doesn't get to drink it! I just let him hold the can and touch it sometimes before I open it because he likes the coldness).

Before he was born, my mom bought him this "There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly" storyboard with the woman and all the things she swallows and you stuff them into her mouth as you read the story. I brought it out for the first time this week and read it to him. He thought it was funny and then proceeded to go ahead and eat the Old Woman to show her what it feels like for someone to eat you up.

A little swinging time at the park! We haven't been able to hang up the swing we have for him at the house because the beams on our backporch are hollow we found out and we haven't figured out a way to rig up something to hang it from (no trees in the backyard, either.).

I just had to get a picture of those scrumptious cheeks. Someday they'll be gone and I don't want to forget them!

This was his reaction when he first saw his daddy get out of the car as he got home from work. Melts my heart!

This is what we think of Longhorns at our house! (Thanks to his Uncle Burl, Aunt Sandy, and cousins Abby and Trip!)

A rolling over sequence....

1. On his back

2. Starting the roll

3. Swinging the leg over

4. Half airborn for a second ;)
5. Completing the roll
6. Ahhh, victory! I got my prize!
7. Looking quite satisfied.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! Please stay tuned for an important announcement about the "future" of this blog later this week.

Heyyy

2010-07-18T20:24:00.003-05:00

Hi, I'm back to the land of blogging!

Sometimes when Toots is "talking" these days, it sounds like he is saying "heyyy" to us. Hence, the title of the blog post. I'm going to do most of my update in a series of pictures with captions because I don't really know a better way to sum it all up without typing way too much! Oh, by the way, that poster giveaway I posted about week before last? I won it!! Yayyyyy!! I never win anything so this is super exciting to me!

First, Toots had some battle scars from his 6 month appointment...

I don't have a picture of this, but on Friday, July 9, I flew to San Antonio to get my hair done and I was planning to drive back to Fort Worth with my mom the next day. We originally were going to all go and stay for the weekend in SA, but plans changed. I didn't want to bring Toots on a flight and then a 5 hour drive back the next day because I thought that was too much, so Tim stayed with him overnight and half the day for the first time. They had a great time together and Tim did an awesome job (of course!).

Next, it was my birthday....I am now a quarter of a century old. (Excuse the blurry pic)

The day started out with me going to get an EIGHTY minute massage, courtesy of my wonderful husband and little boy! It was heavenly! And, the place where I got the massage gave me a mimosa as a birthday gift :) My dad, stepmom, brother and sisters came down for the dinner. We went and ate at Pasado's (sp?) for dinner and then came home and had a delicious strawberry cake they brought me.

Also, earlier on my birthday, we had a playdate at Toot's new friend's house. A is only 3 days older than him and they are pretty cute together. Toots loved some drums she had, so I am searching everywhere trying to find them for him. Every Target in the city is out of them except one in Arlington but that's like 30 minutes away.

Toots got a new fishbowl toy from his CiCi. He loveeeees the crab. It makes a crinkly noise and he likes to chew on it all.the.time.

He's still very happy almost all of the time

Toots got a new puzzle with big knobs to make it easier for him to grab

Mostly, he likes to pull out each piece one at a time, chew on it, toss it aside, and pick up another one.

We like to do lots of playing in the morning after eating our banana and drinking some milk.

Heyyyyy mom! (His hair sticks up all the time, even if I brush it :))

His new most favorite thing is playing in the sink

I tried undressing him and filling the sink with water. He only liked it a little. Look at those biceps!

We had a swimming playdate, but Toots was having a bad day, so he didn't have too much fun.

I had a mom's night out last week as well at The Wine Loft in Southlake. I picked up A's mom, Nicole, and we met 4 other moms there. It was a really, really fun time and it was nice to have some girl talk without the babies.

We got Toots a rocking "horse." It's actually an octopus - Ollie the Octopus. He's not very good at staying on it right now but it's very cute.

I gave him a stuffer animal when he was taking a nap the other day, just to see what he would do with it. When I went in to get him when he woke up, this is how he was laying in the crib...

On Friday, I was cleaning the house and Toots was playing on the floor by himself. He has gotten SO good at playing alone when I need to do things and played by himself for an entire hour when I was cleaning. He likes me to put the basket of his small toys on the floor and then he tips it over on its side and picks the toys out of it. All of the sudden, I couldn't see him sitting up anymore and I ran over to make sure he was okay. This is how I found him:

He wasn't crying or anything. He did, however, start crying when I took more than one picture.

Also on Friday, we met his Pops for lunch and we decided Pops would take him back to Waco with him so Tim and I could go see Inception, have dinner, and have a night to ourselves. It was the first time Toots was away in a different city as both of us, but it was nice to have a night alone and Toots had a wonderful time. We went on Saturday to get him and spend the night. I don't even know if he knew we were gone :) Here's some pictures:

Lots and lots of playing (I thought it was cute how the yellow ring is hooked on his foot)

With Lolli (look at that belly!)

With Pops

And with Aunt Emily (more belly)

I've been terrible about participating in the Mommy and Me picture thing. I have several pictures, but keep forgetting to post on Fridays. I will hopefully change that this week! Also, I will do a Skinny Tuesday update on Tuesday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Timeout

2010-07-13T20:03:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone. I'm realllly behind on work and working out and housework this week, so I'm trying to take the time to catch up on all that so I can get paid, get in shape, and have a clean house! Because of that, I need to take a little timeout on blogging this week. If I start getting caught up, I will post later in the week, but it might be Sunday before I get a chance.

Just didn't want you to think I disappeared! Sorry for the timeout - I'll be back soon!

I Love Posters! Giveaway

2010-07-08T13:10:00.002-05:00

Kaitlin at Life of a Busy Wife is hosting a giveaway on her blog for a poster from Field Trip shop on Etsy. I want to win one of the "Love" posters for our bedroom because I need some stuff on the walls in there! Go check out the giveaway on Kaitlin's blog and maybe you could win :)

Fee Fi Fo Fum...

2010-07-08T12:54:00.002-05:00

We had Toots' 6 month appointment this morning. His stats were:

27 3/4 inches tall (90th percentile)

20 pounds 9 ounces (90th percentile)

17 3/4 head circumference (85th percentile)

He's still a giant baby! The doctor said Toots is as big as his 14 month old son right now - haha. Everything looks great physically with him and he is hitting all his milestones at the right time. He got three shots. He didn't start crying until the third one but then it was big ol' crocodile tears. He fell asleep in the car on the way home, woke up to eat when we got here, and went right back to sleep and is still sleeping almost two hours later!

That's about all for now! I actually got another picture of me and Toots so I think I will start participating in the weekly post of a picture of me and him that Rachel told me about. Thanks for the tip, Rachel!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

It's baaaaaaack!

2010-07-07T13:40:00.003-05:00

I'm bringing it back on a Wednesday, but Skinny Tuesday is back! I'm starting to exercise again (finally) so I figured I needed to re-start the posts. I started P90X yesterday morning bright and early at 5:00 AM with the Chest and Back DVD. I can't do a single pull-up, yet, but maybe that will improve as I keep doing them. Last night, I did the Ab Ripper X DVD. I went to bed too late to get up at 5:00 AM this morning (I need to go to bed at, like, 9:00 to be able to get up at 4:45), but when Toots takes his next nap, I will be doing the Plyometrics DVD.

Tim and I are also eating Weight Watcher friendly meals every night for dinner except Tuesdays when we go to Rosa's. Hopefully the exercise will help me start losing the weight again because I felt like that's mostly what stalled me out was when I had to stop Stroller Strides. I'm already sore from the workout yesterday and I'm going to go to bed early enough to get up at 5:00 tomorrow.

My starting weight this week is 145 so I have 11 pounds to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I have a goal to lose it by September. Hold me accountable!

House

2010-07-07T13:05:00.008-05:00

Here are some pictures of the house with our stuff in it. Like I said, we STILL haven't finished hanging pictures, so you're going to see a lot of blank walls!

Front of house
Front porch with our new patio furniture

Entryway

Dining room

View 1 of the kitchen - ignore baby dishes by the sink :)

View 2 of the kitchen

View 3 - The eating area. I'm not sure why this turned out so dark.

Living Room - View 1. We are going to get an armoire for the TV (right side of the picture) but we haven't found one we like, yet, so it's just one our old coffe table right now.

Living Room - View 2

Tim's office - View 1

Office - View 2. The desk by the window is an old Captain's desk that my Nanny gave us. The chest on the wall (right side of the page) was Tim's grandparents that they bought when they were living in Japan. It has a really cool scene carved into the top of it.

Upstairs living room - View 1. Tim had the table set up for poker because he was going to have friends over to play but they ended up not being able to come. Usually the table is against the wall. That area is actually set up to be a wet bar - we might add that in in the future.

Upstairs living room - View 2. The baby wasn't included with the house ;)

Upstairs bathroom. We're going to get tile put in up here that matches the tile in our bathroom and the downstairs bathroom. Right now it's laminate by the toilet and tub and carpet by the sink.

Upstairs bedroom, view 1.

Upstairs bedroom, view from the door.

Toot's room looks absolutely terrible in this picture. We haven't gotten any stuff hung up and the curtains are just tacked to the wall. I shouldn't have even included this! I swear, it will look cuter than this!

Downstairs/Toots' bathroom. Surfer theme!

Downstairs guest bedroom. This one turned out kind of dark as well. Tim calls this the "Happy Room" because it's really bright and cheerful looking.

Our bedroom with our new bedspread. The baby wasn't included with the bedspread, either :)

Our bathroom.

Tub and shower. I swear these pictures didn't look this dark whenever I took them.

That's all I've got! I might post some more once we get the pictures hung up, but I didn't want to keep telling y'all I would post them and not do it!

SIX Months!

2010-07-06T20:47:00.012-05:00

Toots is SIX months old today!! I can't believe we were spending our first night with him six months ago today. A lot has changed since then and I'm not sad about any of it :)

I forgot when I posted last week that his doctor's appointment isn't until Thursday, so I will have to post his stats then. Here's some tidbits about him now:

He is sitting up by himself for long periods of time and can even lean to get something he wants without falling over. He very easily rolls from tummy to back, within about 1.5 seconds of being put on his stomach, but still won't roll back to tummy. When he is on his tummy, he kicks his legs out like he wants to move and holds himself up with his arms really easily. His favorite toys are his Sophie giraffe, Bright Starts lion with cellophane crinkly in the tummy, his stacking rings, and his rolly ball that rolls a little on its own, has stuff to push, and sings songs. He also loves this little guitar that plays music. He loves to talk allll the time and also recently LOVES to squeal/scream very shrilly and loudly. It's great fun at restaurants and when we're at people's houses :) He has also recently come to love standing up all the time. His exersaucer is also a big hit but he's not so into the jumper (at least, he won't jump in it. He just spins around). Oh, and he also very much likes strolling around in the stroller. That usually cheers him up if he is fussy and he often falls asleep in it.

No teeth, yet, but he loves to chew on EVERYTHING, especially fingers, and drools a bunch.

We are completely off of the pacifier and sound machine now, so he has no sleep aids whatsoever except a nightlite but I don't really consider that a sleep aid. We have a nighttime routine we have had in place since he was first able to take a bath after his umbilical cord fell off. Now it starts off with eating dinner, then a bath, get dressed for sleeping, eat a bottle while Daddy reads him a book, finish the bottle, kisses from Mommy and down to sleep. He rarely cries anymore when I put him down for sleep and usually falls asleep within 5 minutes. At nap time, he might cry for 5 or so minutes but then falls asleep. He takes three naps per day right now - one usually around 9:00 AM, one around 1:00 PM, and one around 3:30 or 4:00 PM. They range anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the nap and the day.

As far as food goes, well, he loves it! Every morning when he wakes up (he is allowed to get out of bed at 7:00 or later. Sometimes he wakes up as early as 6:15 but does a great job just entertaining himself until I go in at 7.) he gets a banana. He usually eats between 3 and 4 oz total of the banana and then drinks between 3 and 4 oz of a bottle. At lunch, he eats between 4 and 6 oz of food - usually two different kinds of vegetables and we also recently introduced chicken, and some applesauce or pears - and 5 oz of a bottle. At around 3:15, he gets just a bottle and drinks 8 oz. He eats dinner around 7:15, again a mix of fruit, chicken, and vegetables, and then eats between 7 and 8 oz of a bottle right before bed. He loveeeeess sweet potatoes and butternut squash for vegetables and likes carrots. He does not like green beans. He is okay with peas. He's still getting used to the chicken. He loves the applesauce and pears. Also, a couple times he has had some refried beans at a Mexican restaurant and thinks those are yummmmmy!

I can't think of anything else right now...I feel like there is more to say about him but that's all I can think of.

I'm 6 months old today!

Mom, I think it says we should eat this. Bear thinks so, too.

Oh.my.goodness. This cake is HUGE!

Close-up of the 1/2 birthday cake I made for him. He had a tiny taste of just the cake part and seemed to like it.

We went swinging for his 1/2 birthday as well. I thought his eyes looked pretty in this picture.

He was totally cracking up at Tim. Daddy is the funniest person he knows.

Toots also celebrated his very first 4th of July this week! We went to Trophy Club and met with a girl I recently met in our playgroup who has a seven month old and her husband. We really enjoyed hanging out with them and hope to get together again soon. There was a parade that we watched and a car honked loud and it scared him and he started crying. Harrison, his friend that was there too, got really upset by the firetruck sirens. I'm glad he's not the only one who is scared of loud noises!

When we first got there, we realized we forgot a stroller, so Tim offered to carry him in the carrier I had in the car. He's right at the weight limit for it but fit okay. He wouldn't look at the camera for the picture, though!

Then we left and went to Wal-Mart real quick and bought an umbrella stroller. I like this MUCH better, Mama!

I don't have any pictures of it (because I'm a horrible picture taker), but we went to visit my grandparents and mom and stepdad in east Texas Friday and Saturday, and Toots saw his first fireworks there. They were a little further away so they didn't make a loud noise that scared him and he liked them for a little while and then got bored. He was a trooper, though, and stayed up 3 hours past his normal bedtime and wasn't even fussy! Toots loves both sets of his great-grandparents and very much enjoys visiting them as well as sitting outside and swinging while we're there.

Here's an example of me sitting up. I like to hang out without clothes as much as possible :)

Mommy, WHY are you always sticking this thing in front of me?! What is it? I think I will try and eat it.

I finally took some pictures of the house even though we still don't have all the pictures hung. I will post those tomorrow and I will also bring back Skinny Tuesday (on Wednesday) tomorrow. I noticed I have lost A LOT of readers (based on the hits I get per day on the sitmeter) over the past couple weeks. I guess I am boring :( Thanks to those of you who still read and I hope y'all had a great weekend!

Happy 6 Months, Toots!

Letter To Yourself

2010-07-01T13:52:00.002-05:00

Jill at Baby Rabies participated in a blog idea to write a letter to yourself at a previous age. The direct link to that post is here. I want to participate in this idea and plan on doing so when I have more time to write (Toots just "woke up" from a non-nap), but I wanted to copy and paste a portion of Jill's letter to her 25 year old self because I thought it was great. I think I would've written this to myself at the beginning of law school or the beginning of Practice Court (Age 21 or 23), but I still think it applies.

Your confidence is shaky these days. You worry if you’re living up to what others expect of you. You wonder if you’ll ever “be” somebody. What I’m about to tell you is going to blow your freaking mind. When you become a mother soon (yes,soon), that tiny little person will do more for you than a 4 year college degree ever did. He will help you find yourself. Your confidence will grow, not because you will be a perfect mother (you really won’t even be able to figure out how to pee without putting him down the first month), but because you will be amazed at your own strength. Your priorities will fall in line, and you’ll know that happiness isn’t about becoming who you wanted to be when you were 17, but about allowing yourself to give up a little control and seeing where life takes you.

You’re going to learn to truly appreciate the moment you’re in, instead of constantly yearning for the next big thing. It will continually be a battle to live in the moment, but you’ll work harder to stay there. Success won’t be measured by the size of your paycheck or the make and model of your car, but by the number of nights you get your infant to sleep longer than 5 hours and by the joy that fills your heart the first time he belly laughs at you. Sure, that may sound like a drag now, but I promise it’s a ton of fun… most of the time.

I actually cried when I read that part of her letter because it is exactly what I would like to tell myself when I started law school. I'm kind of embarassed to say this, but it's the truth, so I will...About a month before I found out I was pregnant with Toots, which would have been right about the time I actually had just gotten pregnant, I was finishing my first quarter of Practice Court and would soon be starting my final quarter of law school. Right before our last final, several of us were talking in a classroom and one of my friends said something about how she wasn't going to have kids anytime soon, so she was depending upon her friends to start having kids that she could play with. She and a few of the guys we were talking with all looked over at me (I was the only one married in the bunch talking) and I said "ohhhh no, not me! I'm WAY too close to finishing school and starting my career to have a baby now. At the beginning of law school, I would've thought about it, but definitely not now!" And, little did I know, there was a baby growing in my belly at that exact moment and my life would change forever literally a month from then. Of course I was totally excited when I found out I was pregnant, but it did change that "plan" Tim and I had about me working for three years before I got pregnant and it did virtually end my very quickly upcoming career as a prosecutor for at least the next several years, but it turned out wonderful and I couldn't ask for anything else.

The point of all this is, I found some insight in Jill's letter to herself and it reached out to me and would be something I would've also liked to say to myself at the beginning of law school, at my 21 year old point in my life. A baby changed all my priorities and all my plans, but it was already God's plan and it turned out to be the best plan He could've had for me.

Throne of Thornes

Dixie Lullaby

Two Years and Four Months!

Excuses, Excuses

Side by Side

Hospital Stay

Finally! One Month!

Ugh

So Sorry!

He's Here!

Tomorrow, Tomorrow

Still here!

Mish Mash

19 Months

Kiawah

Summer Time

Water Play and "Summer" Time

La La La

Here We Go Again!

Happy Easter!

Hippity Hoppity

15/15

14 Months/12 Weeks

Ultrasound Pictures

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

Snow, Snow Go Away

More Birthday

Randoms & Little Gym

Post TONIGHT (Update!)

Happy Birthday, Brendan!

Ho Ho Ho!

*Hangs Head*

30 Days!

Update**

Vote for Brendan!

Busy Bee

New Developments

Ugh!

Trick or Treat

Ready...Set.....GO!

Blah

Two Weeks Ago

Pumpkin Patch

Nine Months!

Empty Promises

Lost and Found

Finally

*Cough*Cough*

A Week At Home

Shiny and New to Me

Finally

The Appointment

Prayer Request

The Return of a Name

Welcome!

Invites

Last Post

Hi, STEPH

Just Kidding (Re: Blog Future)

I Can't Believe It!

Heyyy

Timeout

I Love Posters! Giveaway

Fee Fi Fo Fum...

It's baaaaaaack!

House

SIX Months!

Letter To Yourself

Hangs Head

CoughCough*