19 months

He's so much like a toddler these days and no longer a little baby:

• He likes to sing along to his CDs. For Old McDonald he sings e-i-e-i-o over and over.
• He loves to be chased. He also likes to run and hide from you when its time to get his faced wiped he'll run under the table or before bed he runs into his room and hides in the closet.
• Starting to put a few words together - all-done bath, more water (when he wanted to get dunked in the pool). And loves to point out things that he knows the words for.
• Starting to eat a few more things - peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cream cheese on a bagel. Loves all kinds of fruit - though his favorite fruit changes every few weeks. Currently its raspberries and blueberries.
• Starting to learn a few letters. His favorite is O and likes to point it out when ever he sees it. Sometimes he also knows A, B, and L. Still has a lot more to learn to keep up with Nathan (Held family blog) and Andrew (playgroup friend) - they know the entire alphabet!
• Loves to be a little helper - if you give him something to carry or to take to someone he gets the biggest smile on his face when he finishes his task.
• Loves to clean - dust, sweep or use the swiffer mop. He's obsessed! he'll say "clean" and sign clean to ask for a dust rag or say "sweep" for the broom. Not sure where he learned this from.

our little soccer tot

Here's a few photos from Brendan's Soccer Tots class. He likes to kick the soccer ball but is a little young to follow some of the activities. He loves the obstacle course, kicking over the cones, and foxes and farmers (a game of chase).

One of his favorite parts of class is at the end when they all get their stamps from Coach Adam.

They call the goal "the monkey house" - Brendan loves to go in it because of all the soccer balls.

news

There's a new blog link on our 'blog and family website links" list - The Liu family. Leslie and Steve recently welcomed their new son Ryan into the world a few weeks ago. Leslie was a college roommate through most of college and I met Steve my first year of school.

Also, Brendan has a new cousin (second cousin) - we haven't met her yet but she looks like a cutie on her baby announcement.

In other news, Brendan had his 18 month check-up. Checked out healthy and he impressed the doctor when she asked him to look at the zebra on her stethascope and he signed zebra.
weight: 26.6 pounds, 50-75 percentile
height: 33 3/4 inches, 90 percentile
head: 19 inches, 75 percentile

These days he's mostly wearing size 2T clothes and few tops in 3T.

posing for the camera

Brendan likes to pose for the camera and LOVES to see pictures of himself after we take them

some pictures from Thursday morning hanging out in the playroom

doing some reading (he likes to go through books and point to all the pictures that he knows the words to):

Some pictures from today (Saturday):
Brendan and Brendan Brown Bear (his bear that we made for him at Build a Bear on for his birthday):

Sitting with his monkey watching Signing Times:

Wearing Daddy's hat:

Ready to go in the pool:

the little toddler

Here's a few photos from last Sunday. We went to Soccer Tots and he had so much fun during parachute time, that we decided to pull out our play parachute so he could do some more playing. He also got a new horse toy which he likes to run around with.

taking a break for a snack:

Brendan wearing a Simply Sweets hat to celebrate our Grand Opening

photo post

Catching up with some photos from the 4th. Here's some photos of our little toddler playing on his slide -we decided to bring it inside since its too hot to play with it outside.

Blueberry face - he loves blueberries and takes handfulls and stuffs them in his mouth

His current favorite toy - the golf set

I promised to post the 2007 calendars each month so you could see photos of him 1 year ago - I forgot to do this in June, so here's June and July.

we have a new address

no we haven't moved. But the city of Phoenix has given us a new city and zipcode. If you would like our updated address, send us an email.

Brendan is 1 1/2 years old!

what he's up to:

• Keeps adding more words and signs - this is the last month I'll post a list because he's got so many words I can't keep up. Words:momma, dadda, cole-cole (Nicole), cat, un-oh, night-night, nap-nap, wow, no, balloon, duck, bus, socks, shoes, book, bath, ball, belly button, water, car, truck, more, all done, hat, up, banana, fruit, pretzel, sit, apple, two. Also lots of animal sounds: quack-quack, ruff-ruff, hiss, meow, roar, baa, moo. Signs: milk, water, eat, hungry, more, hurt, cereal, banana, cheese, dog, cracker, shoes, flower, all done, potty, snake, mouse, horse, pig, sheep, lion, fish, rabbit, book, apple, icecream, cold, hot, airplane, car, baby, strawberry, dirty, clean, sit, girl, boy, monkey, hippo, giraffe, elephant, chicken, doll, donkey, bread.


• Loves to find everyone's belly betton.


• He moved his bedtime back to 630 and wakes around 7 (and sometimes even 8) - he's a good sleeper.


• Loves loves loves water - bath time, playing in the sprinkler, going in the pool, using the hose, splash parks. He loves to dunk himself in the pool.


• Finally has most of his teeth - still waiting on the last 4 so he has big gaps between the front teeth and his molars.


• Loves to play ball - kicking, throwing, hitting. We signed him up for Soccer Tots class to give him a chance to run around indoors since its too hot outside.


• His current favorite toy is a golf set- since we got it for him a week ago he spends most of his playtime running around with the clubs or trying to hit the balls. He also loves his play fruit, cars, and books.


• He's doing better with eating but still a limited number of foods that he will eat. His favorite foods are pretzels, icecream, grapes, bananas, strawberries and blueberries. Still no vegetables unless I sneak them in as bread or sweet potato fries.

San Diego and Father's Day

This past weekend we took a little vacation to San Diego. It was our first trip back as a family and Nicole's first trip to California. Saturday we went to Dog Beach in Ocean Beach, the Del Mar fair, and then up to our old neighborhood where they were having a party in the circle to celebrate Vic's second birthday. The people who bought our house gave us a tour so that we could see what they've done with the place - Brendan's room is now pink because they have twin girls. Sunday, Father's Day we went to Coronado. The weather was perfect and it was great to visit some of our favorite places. Brendan loved played in the sand especially the big hole that Nicole dug for him. Friday night he didn't want to sleep in the hotel crib so he ended up falling asleep on our bed and then we moved him when he was in a deep sleep.

Happy Father's Day to Rob, Brendan's grandpas and all the other Dads who read this blog.

photo post

Here's a few photos of our boy. The first 3 are from Memorial day weekend and the rest are from this weekend.

watching Signing Times

playing with Jackson