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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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!