Week 4

January 10 - playing outside

January 11 - this sweater looks better when its not covered in drool!

January 12 - getting ready for bed

January 13 - snuggled up in a towel after bath time


January 14 - trying to drink the water pouring out of the bath toy.

January 15 - he looks like such a big boy here!

January 16 -dancing in the high chair

January week 3

I know, I know, I'm WAY behind on my pictures. I'm trying to get caught up!! More to come.....

Jan 3

Jan 4

Jan 5
(I didn't take a photo this day! OOOOPPPPSSS!!!!)


Jan 6

Jan 7

Jan 8

Jan 9

365- week 2

We had a nice weekend and new year. We went to WV to visit my mom, stepdad and little brother. It was so nice to see family. Brenden was definitely ready to come home though. My little cruiser needs his room to roam and get into trouble!

Here are my week 2 pictures of my 365 project:

December 27 (2 pictures)

I just love the pants - the shirt has a train, hence the "toot" on the hiney!

Brenden was such a grump this day the only time I could get him happy was in the bath. He's getting a new tooth so it hasn't been fun!


December 28
Trying to drink out of a big boy cup (thats empty).


December 29
Another rough day, so another bath photo!



December 30
Brushing my hair before school!


December 31
Sitting on my daddy's lap. Lots of drooling because of the new tooth.


January 1
Happy New Year! My special delivery! Wouldn't it be great if getting a kid this cute was this easy - just order one on amazon.com ;)


January 2
Sitting in my new wagon I got from Grandma and Papa for Christmas!

365 Project - Week 1

Brenden had a great Christmas. He got lots of toys and had fun playing with everything. Some of his favorite toys are the ball pit, the drum sticks (notice not the whole drum, just the sticks!), the ball popper choo choo, and the musical activity table. I can't believe in just a few short weeks he'll have his first birthday too and get MORE loot!

Some of my virtual friends introduced me to a concept of a 365 photo project. This is a project where you take at least one ( I say at least because you ALL know I never keep my photos down to just one!) picture of your child each day of the year. I thought it was a great idea so I decided to start one of my own. This also forces me to update this blog at least once a week as I'll be posting the photos weekly (or at least try!)

Here are the photos from week 1 of the 365 project!

December 20

Haha! I found the remote control again!

December 21

Playing with all the bows from the presents

December 22

I love messing with the VHS/DVD player!

December 23

Playing "telephone" with Daddy's cell phone

December 24

Christmas Eve - waiting for Santa to come!

December 25

Christmas day - Mommy's favorite present!

December 26

Yes, that is strawberry applesauce in my eyebrow!

Super Long Blog

I've gotten behind on blogging all of Brenden's milestones and funny moments so I'm going to attempt to catch up in one super long blog post!

I'm sure he's only funny to me most of the time, but still, I think Brenden is just so funny. He's really forming his personality and its just a joy to watch his little mind grow. We've been teaching him to wave bye-bye for weeks now. If you wave to him, he'll wave back. The other day I was giving Brenden a bottle and Sean left the room and Brenden stuck his hand up in the air, other hand still firmly on the bottle, and waved bye. It made me chuckle. He gets it, he understands why we wave, and not just to do it only if someone else does it first. He knows its a way of saying bye.

This picture was taken about a month ago but it makes me laugh every time I look at it.

I was feeding Brenden some yogurt and he really preferred to play and not eat, so I set the little bowl on the coffee table and he went about his merry little way. Moments later I needed to run upstairs to get him a diaper. When I came down I noticed he was entirely too quiet and when I walked in the room he had the bowl of yogurt up to his mouth and was drinking it like it was a cup of water. It was very clear he was enjoying every bit of it as he was making Mmmm Mmmm sounds as he gulped! He looked up at me for a second as if to say "what? Its mine, I decided to eat it MY way!" He actually finished most of it and very little ended up on the floor. Every time I look at the picture I relive the moment in my mind and I always laugh.

He loves to dance. When he hears songs he likes he puts both arms up in the air and bounces up and down and gets so excited. The other day at daycare I set him down to drop him off and the teacher put in a holiday CD and Brenden immediately started swaying back and forth. One day his notes on his daily sheet said he danced so hard his pants fell down!

He can say thank you -- or at least "dah-doo!" He doesn't really know what it means yet but he knows if you give/get something somebody should say dah-doo! Here are 2 video clips of him trying to say thank you.

He's also walking using his push-toy. He'll play with this thing for a long time and get really mad if he gets stuck in a position and can't turn around. Here's a video of him pushing Tow-mater!

Another ordinary day

I sometimes struggle to find something exciting and read-worthy to blog about on a regular basis. I find most of my days to be quite ordinary and thus not that interesting to anybody other than myself.

We had a nice Thanksgiving. My brother Tom got to meet Brenden for the first time and that was very important for me. I want Brenden to know who his family is and how many people he is important to. We drove up to my mom's house and Brenden did really well in the car all things considered. He had a melt-down when we got stuck in a traffic jam, but my brother and I were on the verge of the same melt-down so we could hardly blame Brenden. I finally broke down and put a DVD player in the car. I hate having him watch lots of TV, but compared to screaming endlessly in the car, it seemed like the lesser of two evils.

Brenden is still not ready to walk yet. He can sometimes stand unassisted but he is so darned fast at crawling that trying to get him to walk is like torture when he knows he could just get there faster if he crawled. I have some video of him pushing his "Tow-Mater" toy push/ride truck. He's so cute with his Frankenstein legs.

He also said "thank you" this weekend. Well okay, he sad "dah dooo" but we knew he was trying to imitate us. It was cute. We have vidoe of that too. As soon as I get it to the computer I will post it here.

He's almost 11 months old. I don't know where the time went. I certainly didn't expect it to go by this fast. I look back at his pictures from just 6 months ago and he hardly looks like the same baby! We are having portraits made this weekend for the holidays. I hope they turn out well and can't wait to share them with everybody!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Its that time again when we should all reflect on what we are thankful for so I thought I'd share my top 10 - I invite you to do the same!

1 - Brenden! I can't thank God enough for blessing me with such a sweet little boy!
2 - My family - My husband, Mom, Stepdad, brothers, inlaws. I'm blessed to have such a large family.
3 - My close friends who have stood by my side through ups and downs, thick and thin, you have helped me through some really tough times and never once judged and I cannot be more thankful.
4- My "virtual" friends (many of whom are also my "close friends" listed in #3) - My online family of moms and future moms (I believe we ALL will be moms one day). I don't think I could have ever survived the ups and downs of infertility and losing a baby without you all!
5 - My relationship with God. I have had to talk with Him a lot over the past 3 or more years and surprisingly he has answered me a few times. It helps me face the trials of each day knowing He has a purpose for me in His plan, even though His plan is not always what I want it to be!
6 - RE's around the world - For giving women a fighting chance at being a mom when "mother nature" alone is not doing the trick!
7 - My acupuncturist. For providing me with an alternative to drugs and negative side effects and also giving me a moment in my life where I can truly relax.
8 - My JOB - stress and all! With this harsh economy and all the turmoil the banking industry is experiencing I am very thankful to still have a place to come to work every day.
9 - My home, flaws and all, I am always thankful to have a roof over my head.
10- My fur babies - Buddy and Copper and even crazy Milo, you always love me unconditionally and I probably don't always deserve it!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!! Gobble Gobble!!