plasma

Rob's TV arrived this week as we continue to work on the playroom - this playroom is designed for little kids and big kids, too. The TV is mounted on the wall but we still need to hire an electrician to move the power outlet and we're waiting for the entertainment center to arrive (to replace the $10 Target TV stand that we're currently using).

We don't let Brendan watch much TV but to celebrate the occasion, we let him watch a Baby Einstein DVD. He was mesmerized and watched the entire thing! When he watched it 2 months ago, he lost interest about half way through.

Brendan and Daddy watching Baby Einstein

Brendan decides he needs a closer look

8 months

Today Brendan is 8 months old!

Updates:

• He has perfected his crawling and can get around very quickly - if you turn your head for a second, he's across the room getting into something.
• He's also much better at pulling himself to a standing position and can play for awhile when standing at his activity table.
• He's just started cruising taking at most 3 steps along the sofa.
• Favorite toys are his Leap Frog activity table, submarine ball pit and maracas. He also really like the empty Huggies box that we gave him.
• He likes to push toys around the room moving on his knees.
• He got his first tooth - he's done pretty well with the teething though the past few nights he has woken up in the middle of the night upset. Hopefully this will pass soon.
• He learned to wave bye-bye, though recently he has forgotten how to do it. Hopefully this will return since we think this is just so adorable.
• He's starting to babble in addition to his bear screams (when he does this we call him out little T-Rex)
• He's sleeping and napping well. He goes to bed around 7 and wakes around 6am though if you give him some toys he'll play in his crib for awhile. He takes 3 naps a day - 1 hour morning nap, 2 hour mid-day nap and 1 hour afternoon nap.
• We take him to Gymboree and Babytime at the library - he loves to be around other kids and loves the songs.
• Brendan loves bathtime. He's graduated to the big tub and loves to crawl around, splash in the water, and play with his rubber duckies.
• He's doing better with eating babyfood - for breakfast he eats oatmeal and fruit and for lunch he wats oatmeal and a vegetable. At dinner time he perfers to wait for his evening bottle. He loves to play with his sippy cup but doesn't show much interest yet in drinking from it. He also loves to drink from our glasses, however, he just likes to put the water in his mouth and not swallow it.

Who is this a picture of??????

It looks a lot like Brendan but its actually a baby picture of Rob.

He's cruising

weekend updates

He's Cruising
On Saturday Brendan started doing some cruising along the sofa - so far the most he's gone is 3 steps.



First tooth
Sunday morning, a tooth popped through! The lower left tooth just barely broke through though he won't let anyone have a look.

some photos

bye bye

Babywearing

I'm a babywearer and Brendan loves it. Since he outgrew his bjoern (which we often used several times a day for his first 6 months) we switched to a BabyHawk mei tai and an Ella Roo hip carrier. Its much easier to use when shopping instead of a stroller and useful around the house when you need your hands free.

pictures, pictures, pictures (here's your weekly dose of Brendan photos)

When it rains in AZ

it pours

Grandma Brown's Birthday

This weekend Brendan celebrated his Grandma's birthday by spending the whole day playing with her. We had a nice dinner followed by, of course, birthday cake! Then while Grandma kept an eye on Brendan, Rob and I escaped out of the house to Castles N Coasters where Rob kicked my butt at minature golf.

Friday evening, I attended my first moms club MNO event (Mom's Night Out) - it was a relaxing evening of yoga and desserts - and of course, I had to make a cake for the occasion.
Sunday morning, Brendan hosted a playgroup for our WVA mom's group and Alec and Marisa came over to play. Brendan played well with Marisa but wasn't so sure about Alec playing with his toys - not sure if its because Alec is older (he's 2 next week) or because he was playing with one of Brendan's favorite toys (which were just the 2 legs to his leap frog activity table).

Brendan gets most of the attention here on the blog so I thought it would be good to post a photo of the girls, Sara and Sammy. This is a picture of them napping in the office with me while I work.

Brendan Photos

let me out of here

playing peek-a-boo

already a soccer mom

I already feel like a soccer mom driving Brendan around to his activties. We just finished swim lessons - they were every weekday evening for 2 weeks. And we just started going to Gymboree on Saturdays. He loves being back at Gymboree - we started going when he was 6 weeks old but stopped when we moved because they didn't have weekend classes for his age group. Now that he's old enough for level 2, they have Saturday classes. Now that he can crawl he can use at lot of the play equipement. His favorite part of the class is Baby Soccer where the parents hold the baby and swing the baby to hit a beach ball in a circle. Now that swim lessons are over, we're back to going to babytime at the Glendale library on Tuesday eveings.

Brendan and Daddy at swim lessons

Brendan's favorite part of swim lessons - singing Wheels on the Bus

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.