Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

If you are opposed to a mild form of child torture, you may not want to watch. :)

Am I the only one who finds this hilarious?! In my defense, he should've been able to get to it in just three rolls! He has become proficient at rolling from his back to his belly after finally learning to do it about three weeks ago. However, he will only roll in one direction from his belly (over his left arm) even though he learned to do that when he was two months old.

Just Because He's Cute

Enjoy some recent pictures!

I blogged earlier about how much Brennan loves this truck. He likes to have us push him up and down the hallway. These were taken over the course of several trips down the hall. His faces are priceless!

He was very proud of himself and started clapping.




These are just from yesterday.

Friday's Fab Five

I hope everyone had a very happy {and fabulous} Thanksgiving! Here's what's been happening around the Calton's this week!

1. We celebrated Brennan's first Thanksgiving. Even though we are far away from our immediate family, we are very blessed to have my aunt and uncle and their kids up here in Connecticut. We spent Thanksgiving with them at my cousin's new house. Beth and Luke's house is great. They are doing a lot of work to it and it was awesome to have Thanksgiving at their new place. I do feel like a terrible mother because I only took one picture of Brennan all day! I guess we were just too busy eating to take more!

2. Our Christmas tree is up! I love Christmas. I love Christmas music and decorations. I do get a little annoyed at how early Christmas decorations seem to come out. It seems earlier each year. But now that Thanksgiving is behind us, I am certainly in the Christmas spirit. We put up the tree and put out a few other decorations too. One year I really want to go all out with outside decorations. For this year I just have three bows outside.

3. I wrapped Brennan's Christmas presents today. We aren't doing too much for him since he is still so little. Plus we know he will be getting more presents from our families. If you can keep a secret, I'll let you know what we got him.

We got him the Stack 'n Surprise Blocks Songs 'n Smiles Sillytown.

We also got him the Laugh & Learn Fun With Friends Musical Table. (little girl not included)

And he is getting some Duplo blocks that we found at a consignment store.

4. Remember when I made these letters for Brennan's room? Well now I am going to make some for Amanda's daughter, Adah. I will show you the final product when I actually get around to doing it. I'm not sure if I want to show Amanda a picture before I send them to her though. Hopefully they'll turn out well.

5. Last, but certainly not least, this past Monday we had dinner over and Rob and Amanda's house! This was the 2nd time they've had us over for a delicious dinner! On Monday we ate hamburgers and watched UK play Oklahoma in basketball! Parker and Brennan have fun playing together. Brennan loved riding in Parker's police cruiser while Parker pushed him around. Maybe a car like this will be a birthday present!

Have a wonderful weekend!

The Stuff Boys Love

Their trucks!



Their dogs!



And their mommies! I mean, I am the one who got him to smile so big!

The Fam

Probably the closest we'll ever get to a family picture.

Friday's Fab Five

Happy Friday!

Thanks for coming to check on our fabulous week. Hehe!

1. My 50 free Christmas cards from Shutterfly arrived! I LOVE them! I was nervous. I knew they looked cute on the computer, but was scared to see them in person. Shutterfly has never disappointed me though, so of course they look great! They even put me in the mood to sing Christmas carols last night while I was getting ready for bed! Head on over to Shutterfly to sign up for your free cards!

2. I won another giveaway. A few weeks ago I won a CD and this time I won a VeggieTales pack. Six DVDs and one CD! Woohoo! Thanks Frugal Femina for hosting! All my blog stalking is paying off after all! :)

3. Are you so excited for the DPP? The December Photo Project that is! I can't wait. This will be the third year I have participated. You just upload a picture a day for the first 25 days of December. You can read the official "rules" here.

4. The kids from our church youth group are participating with us this Sunday in praise team. We have started having them join in on the third Sunday of each month. It's fun to mix it up a little bit and get to work with the teens. We are very blessed to have some truly talented young musicians in our church!

5. Brennan got to play with his friend, Emma yesterday. We hadn't seen Emma and her Mommy, Amanda, in a while, so it was nice to visit. B and Emma were so cute and even kept wanting to hold hands.

Have a great weekend!

Drums and Dino and Elvis, Oh My!

Just wanted to share some pictures of Brennan from Sunday.

I bought him these bongo drums last week. He LOVES them. They also turn into a rolling toy to encourage crawling!

Future dummer

I just adore the faces this kid makes!

Brennan loves all of our fur babies. Dino now actually lets Brennan pet him.

Elvis is more standoffish. But he must love Brennan too because the other night I was in the nursery cleaning up before Brennan's bedtime and about jumped out of my skin when I looked in the crib and saw this.

Kyle ran and grabbed the camera and managed to get this shot of Elvis yawning.

Then we put Brennan in the crib too to see what Elvis would do and he immediately got up and jumped out.

(The cats aren't allowed in the room while Brennan is sleeping, so please don't worry about them getting into the crib.)

I could just eat him up!

Friday's Fab Five

A short and sweet post today.

1. I think I have made our Christmas photo card on Shutterfly! I haven't ordered it quite yet, but I think it is ready to go. It's a big decision!

2. Brennan went to the doctor today for his 9-month well baby check and everything looks great. He got the second part of his flu shot and barely even cried at all. He's so brave! He did throw a fit when I took away the sticker he was given because he wanted to eat it.

3. Brennan rolled from his back to his tummy today! I just said yesterday that he had never done that before! Kyle was able to coax him to do it today twice! Now we've just gotta get that crawling thing down!

4. Kyle came home early from work today! He thought he'd be getting done just after lunch, but was able to come home before lunch! We got to play with Brennan together and I was able to take a little nap!

5. I love DVR. We went to dinner tonight at Panera and I was reading this article in a newspaper that said most people record way too many shows. That is probably true of us, although we could definitely be a lot worse. There are many shows on E that I would like to record, but don't. Tonight we have several shows we need to watch and I am looking forward to just relaxing with the hubby and watching TV. And thankful Brennan goes to bed at 7 so Kyle and I can spend some time together!

Have Friday! Have a great weekend!

Dear Brennan,

You are 9 months old today! As I say every single month, time is just flying by! You go to the doctor tomorrow, so I will know your official stats then, but here is a little about what's been going on the past month!

You are growing, growing, growing! I get a little sad that you can't wear anything that says 6 months on it anymore. I know 6 months was three whole months ago, but it makes me feel like you are growing up too fast! You mainly wear 9 month or 12 month clothes. We just bought you new pjs that are size 18 months, but we have to buy those large because of the way they are made. You seem to have gotten a lot taller in the last month, so I am curious to see how long you are tomorrow. You are wearing size 3 diapers and are still pretty squirmy during diaper changes. Just a few minutes ago I was changing you and you pulled the mirror off the wall! You're one strong little dude!

You are an excellent sitter now. I wasn't sure if you'd ever learn to do it for a long period of time, but you finally mastered it! Since you sit so well, you now get baths in the regular tub. You're such a big boy! You continue to LOVE bath time. You are still great in the car seat and the stroller. Mommy isn't attending Stroller Strides anymore because you were needing to nap during that time, but we still use the stroller when we're out and about. Just the other day, you sat in the front of the shopping cart for the first time and really seemed to love that. People always comment on how cute you are when we are out. You are very smiley and people really like that!

You still eat at the same times during the day, but you are now eating some finger foods. Usually after you eat your solids, I give you some finger foods as snacks. You eat goldfish crackers, Cheerios, yogurt melts, and Gerber puffs. I think you are probably ready to try to eat some fruits and veggies that way too. You mastered the snack trap in no time at all and get so excited if you catch glimpse of it on the counter while being carried around. You got your front bottom two teeth, so that has helped you chew up the finger foods. I am thinking the top front ones might not be far behind because you've been a little fussy the past few days.

Not much has changed with your sleeping patterns. When we went to DC last week, you slept later than normal, which was great. Then we came home and you were waking for a feeding between 6-6:30 like normal, but not wanting to go to back to sleep. I think I figured it out this morning though! I fed you at 6:00 and then laid you back now and you were babbling like crazy. That's all you usually do in the mornings, but this morning I decided to just leave you in bed and I guess you talked yourself back to sleep! The only thing I crave is more consistent nap times. You are a good napper, but they don't start or end at the same time each day, so it makes it hard to plan anything with Mommy's friends. I am just glad you are such a good sleeper though!

You "talk" all the time, but haven't said any real words yet. You say, "dadadada" but don't seem to know that is a word. You can clap your hands and will do it if I say, "good job" or "yeah". You aren't crawling yet and get really frustrated if you're put on your stomach. Most of the time you just roll over to your back immediately. I am excited for you to crawl, but enjoying you being non-mobile for now! And you still have NEVER rolled from your back to your front. One of the best things is that your spitting up has decreased drastically over the last month and I am so happy!

You are such an easy baby! The days when you are fussy are sometimes hard, but I remind myself all the time how lucky we are. You are just the cutest thing ever and I love you more than you will ever know!

Love,

Mommy

Brennan back at 8 months

Brennan today at 9 months

Check out that smirk!

Shutterfly Blogger Freebie

I love a good deal.

I love pictures (especially ones of Brennan).

I love Christmas cards.

Put all three together like Shutterfly has done and I pretty much feel like I've hit the jackpot!

I have been looking at Christmas photo cards from Shutterfly for awhile now. I used Shutterfly to make a photo book for my mom and sisters after our vacation this summer to the Smoky Mountains. It turned out great! I have also started a rather large book that documents Brennan's first year and can't wait to finish that one up and have it printed. Since I have been so happy with Shutterfly, I was already planning on ordering my Christmas photo cards from there. I have gotten several emails about certain percentages off, but I don't think I have the perfect picture to use yet, so I haven't ordered any.

My patience (or procrastination) has paid off! Shutterfly is now offering 50 free holiday cards to bloggers!

I signed up and you should too! I am excited to make my first Christmas photo card now that we have a baby. I wasn't sure people would want a picture of just Kyle and me, so I've never done them in the past.

Shutterfly offers tons of great products for Christmas:

Holiday cards

Christmas invites

Christmas ornaments

I am thinking about going with this card. But I could always change my mind.

Happy shopping!

National Harbor, MD

Here are some more pictures from our little trip to National Harbor.

Brennan and Adah were so excited to see each other again!

She's going in for a kiss!

Such a sweet hug!

Unfortunately it resulted in a head bump and both kiddos started crying.

Brennan is bundled up and ready to walk around National Harbor.

There is this huge buried statue on the beach. We put Brennan in its mouth.

I love this little cutie!

The mommies and kiddos. Check out the sock in Brennan's mouth!

Here's Ms. Adah having fun on the beach.

Here are a few more bath pictures.

Adah's going in for another kiss!

Best buddies!