part 2

well...I couldn't post all of the photos so here are the rest!!

Hi Everyone!
Hope all of you are doing well! Things here are going well.

Brian is growing like a weed! He had his 18 month dr. appt. on the 29th of Jan. and he is 33 almost 34 in. tall and weighs 32 lbs. He’s gone from walking to running and climbing! He has definitely joined the climbing club! Chairs, tables, toy box, TOYS(!!) anything that will allow him to stand on it, is fair game! Forget sitting on the sit and spin….lets STAND on the sit and spin!! (he has even stood on the part that is used to spin!) Any bets on when we will be making our first ER visit?!?!?! He is also is talking. You can understand most words…Oxy (Roxy, our dog), Mama, Daddy, juice (anything that he drinks), ea (eat), ball, car, bye bye, yeah, shoes (but comes out like oose), read and cracker. He also tries to say Nana…but it sounds like Mama. Papa is a little disappointed that he won’t say Papa yet. He is definitely keeping Mama and Daddy busy!!

We are looking forward to the warmer weather when we can get out and do more things. It’s getting harder to contain him in the house!!

Enjoy the photos!! Mom and Dad were here yesterday afternoon. Brian and Papa have a running game with a hat. Brian takes it off Papa and puts it on his head (though he won’t wear his own hats!). He’s recently discovered the ledge for the bay window (it’s behind our couch) and he gets up there to look out the window. The photo with him leaning on the ledge was him watching the mail truck go by. He also LOVES to play with Roxy…though she isn’t quite so sure about him. Yesterday was the 1st time she’s really played with him and they both had a good time! I wish there wasn’t so much stuff in the background…I LOVE the expression on his face! He has started to really enjoy looking at books (read) and he grabbed my book I’m reading..”This Is Your Brain On Music”…well I couldn’t resist since Daddy thinks music is “jungle racket” (ha ha) and Brian loves to dance to music. The first photo I took 2 weeks ago while Rob was out of town.

Take care!!

Happy New Year!

Well..I had hoped to get some new photos up before now..but, the days keep getting away from me!! Between all of the holiday activities, end of the semester at school and Brian growing it's hard to keep up! I didn't use my camera much on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day since I was busy helping Brian open packages. (He was interested in everybody else and playing with the new stuff...he wasn't interested in opening the gifts!) Dad did get some while Brian spent the weekend with them. Rob had to go to Cambridge, Maryland (about 1 1/2 hrs. outside Baltimore) to do some work at the Hyatt Chesapeake Resort and Spa the Fri. after Christmas. Since he'd gotten a free Southwest Airlines ticket (from all of the other trip miles!) I got to go. We made a weekend of it and went on up to Washington DC on Sat. afternoon and came home on Sun. Didn't get much time in DC, but got to see a few things. Here is a slideshow of photos from the Resort. It was a cool place to spend the weekend and I'd LOVE to go back!!



Both Friday afternoon and Saturday morning were gray and cloudy, but it was fairly warm. (I was out walking around the property both days without my coat)

I'll post some of the DC photos later...Brian's asleep right now and laundry calls!! :-)

Brian's 1st snow!

We had our 1st measureable snowfall yesterday/last night. About 6-8 inches in the St. Louis area. Brenden had an old skateboard that he took the wheels off and tried to snowboard!! (Came in yesterday asking for duct tape..... to tape his feet to the board!) We took Brian out this morning to see if he liked it, but I think he's not so sure. He had a hard time walking and could not get up on his own, which made Mr. Independent cranky. He did like sliding down the incline in our backyard on Brenden's board though.

Brian will be 17 months on the 21st and goes a mile a minute. He's learned lots of new words like "Oxie" (Roxie our dog), "mo" (more), "mi" (milk..which is his favorite drink. He's put a cow on his Christmas list to help us out with the milk supply!), "cwack" (crackers) and "Kashy" (Aunt Kathy). Of course he LOVES to yell "Daddddddyyyy", but doesn't say "Mama" much. He knows how to say "uh oh" too..... and LOVES to say it when he does something he shouldn't. Like tossing stuff (his cars, newspaper, etc) over the railing to the basement. (That's just a bit of what he does when he says "uh oh" :-) )

He also did not like his 1st visit to Santa. Daddy and Papa took him to a breakfast with Santa while the rest of us were at Elena's baby shower. He REFUSED to sit on Santa's lap and cried. He LOVES the Hallowee monsters, but HATES the guy in the red suit. We had gone to dinner at a local bbq place after my MRI and he wouldn't walk in the door because they had a pig figure dressed in a Santa suit!! We tried walking him out after dinner and he RAN the other way!!

Have a great week!! And if we don't see you all before (or talk to you) have a wonderful Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are a few pictures I took yesterday... We were over at Uncle Tom and Aunt Vilma's. Tom, Candi and their 2 boys (Logan (3) and Lawson (10 months) ) and Elena and Jesse were both home. Brian had fun playing with Logan. Hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving!!

PS- these are several of the same photo..just in black and white. I was just playing around with Photoshop. Brian was still asleep at 7am!!! :-)

daycare picture day..

Brian's daycare had their fall picture day a few weeks ago. We got our order last Friday. So, I decided to post it up on the blog. We ordered 2 poses since the thumb one was cute. (SOOO Brian!)

Sorry I haven't posted much lately. It's not easy for me to use the computer much. Most of you know I've had problems with my left wrist all summer/fall. It seems I've torn/damaged the TFCC http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/sma/sma_trifibcc_sma.htm (just a bit about it). I am going after Thanksgiving for an MRI Arthrogram. Will find out the 4th what the next steps will be. Dr. doesn't reccomend the repairs since most who have it done regret it. We may go for another opinion. Since the pain makes it hard to do any computer related work (hard for my job since our grades are now all online!) and picking up Brian! Even the day to day stuff is difficult. Oh well...we'll just have to wait and see.

Hope all of you have a GREAT Turkey day on Thursday! Hopefully I'll get some good photos and will post them over the weekend!

Brian and his "vroom vrooms"..

Brian LOVES his cars. Tonka makes a car for little guys that have an entire body that is soft plastic. Just right for little hands. Papa has gotten him a bunch already and when Geegee saw him today she brought him a set of smaller cars. He can entertain himself for quite sometime with these. He was playing on our living room floor with Papa while we waited for Grandma P, Wayne and Aunt Kathy to get to the house to go to Spaghetti Factory for dinner. (We were celebrating my birthday a little early)