7 months

Brendan turned 7 months on Saturday - he's growing up so fast. This month Brendan started to be able to get into a sitting position, he learned to blow raspberries, and he learned to crawl. He really has the crawling down now and he's all over the place which keeps us busy chasing him as he gets into everything. Since there's no containing him on a blanket anymore, we spend most of our time upstairs in the playroom so that he can romp around on the carpeted area. We're busy getting the room completed - painting is done, sofa arrived this week so now we need a TV and some art to complete the room. Brendan is also doing much better at sleeping - he was a great sleeper up until around 4 months, but thankfully he's sleeping through the night again. He usually wakes for a bottle around 5 am and then will go back to sleep until 630 or 7 though he'll play in his crib for another hour if you give him a toy which is nice since it gives us time to get up slowly.

We finished our first week of swimming lessons at the Glendale Parks and Recreation - its actually called 'water acclimation' for his age group since they don't learn how to swim and work of getting used to the water and learning skills that will help them later. His class has kids up to 3 years old so there are some skills that Brendan is too young to learn but he loves being there in the pool with other kids. He's good at splashing, laying on his back so that the back of his head and his ears are getting wet which is practice for backstroke when he's older, and going under the water. His favorite part of the class is when we sing 'motorboat' and 'wheels on the bus'.

This Sunday night, Pat (Grandma) and Kirsten (Brendan's Aunt) joined us for dinner. We had mexican food followed by cake, of course - mexican chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting:

Everyone wants to play on Daddy

Brendan and Mommy

peek-a-boo

Another Bunco night and this time I got out of the house without Brendan - my first real 'girls night out'. Pat, Rob's mom, babysat so that Rob could go to see Muse. Nicole came home with the winnings! She won for having the most buncos. I made another cake so that I can keep practicing - just a simple design - cake was double chocolate sour cream with white chocolate mousse filling.

On Sunday Audra (Rob's cousin) and Lavoy came over to visit with Brendan and see our house.


Brendan is getting better with his crawling and is exploring all over the place. He especially loves to go after the cats. He also loves to play peek-a-boo - here's some photos of him playing in the sheets while he was helping Daddy put away the laundry.

blowing raspberries

We've got video (with sound) I've been playing around trying to learn how to edit our video and get it posted to the blog and I think I've got it figured out.

Brendan learned a new trick this weekend that he's quite proud of - blowing raspberries. He also thinks its very funny when we do it too.




Our little boy is growing up so fast

He also learned how to get from his stomach to a sitting position and he's trying so hard to crawl but usually ends up farther away from where he's trying to go. He has figured out how to get around by going from his tummy to sitting position and back to tummy and when he keeps repeating this he can move accross the room. Since he's mobile now, we're tring to get the playroom setup so that he has a carpeted room to romp around in. Brendan was playing in his crib after waking from a nap and I left him in his crib while I cleaned up a few things in his room. When I turned around, he had pulled himself up to a standing postion - so we lowered his crib mattress down.






One of Brendan's favorite toys is his leapfrog activty table - he's getting better at standing up to play with it though most of the time we take off 2 of the legs so that he can play with it sitting down. He loves all the different musical sounds that it makes and all the levers and buttons that move - this toy keeps him entertained for quite a long time.

Brendan meets more grandparents

Brendan is spoiled by having many grandparents - he has 4 grandmas and 3 grandpas. Grandpa Brown and Grandma Betsy came out for the week from Michigan to meet their grandson. Brendan had a great time hanging out with them and especially likes Grandpa's beard.

6 month stats and other updates

We just got back from the pediatrician's office and Brendan checked out healthy. He got 5 shots and only cried when he got the last one but recovered in a few minutes. He's slowing down for height, catching up for head size and remaining steady for weight.

height: 26.5 inches, 50%
weight: 20 pounds 10 ounces, 90%
head: 17.5 inches, 50%

Feeding update

Brendan is taking a bottle! We've struggled for the past few months trying to get Brendan to take a bottle and its always been a battle. On his 6 month birthday, he decided it was time to switch and been consistantly taking the bottle easily since. This means freedom for me and Rob and Nicole can participate in the feedings.

We're continuing to try more foods and most have gone over well so far:

yum list: rice cereal, carrots, apples, peas
yuck list: sweet potatoes

Brendan is getting mobile

He keeps doing better and better with sitting up. He's also getting very good at pulling up to a standing position while holding onto your hands or other things that are placed low enough for him to reach. He's trying really hard to crawl getting up on his knees and rocking but gets frustrated when he moves farther away from where he's trying to go.

Future drum player

Brendan's latest favorite activity is to bang on pots and pans.

Rob and I went on our first evening date since Brendan was born (our first date out alone was to an afternoon movie). We went to the Chris Isaak concert with Therese (one of Rob's coworkers) while Grandma Brown babysat.

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July. My mom came out from LA to spend the long weekend with us and Rob's mom joined us on the 4th. With temperatures over a 100 and the pool finished, we spent a lot of the weekend in the pool. Rob fired up the grill for the first time and cooked us some yummy burgers and dogs. Because Brendan doesn't like loud noises especially when he's tired we decided to skip watching fireworks this year.