Happy Sunday

I missed the first Sunday in November, but here's one for this week!

via

Just to Make You Smile

This picture was taken back at the beginning of October, but I was going through iPhoto and thought I would share it here. It was taken after Brennan woke up from nap this day. At three and half I am so thankful Brennan doesn't get out of his bed. When he wakes up in the morning and from his nap he always says, "I'm ready to get up please Mommy." This particular day I took Bryce into his room when he woke up and put Bryce onto the bed. Bryce immediately started climbing on top of Brennan and both boys were laughing so hard. I ran and grabbed the camera.

I love these boys!

Old Town Mill

I shared these pictures on Facebook, but never got around to sharing them on here so my parents could see. 

I took the boys to the Old Town Mill a few weeks ago after I picked Brennan up from school. It was picture day at his school, so he was already dressed up a little for that and I figured it would be a good time to try and snap some pictures of the boys. It took SO MANY pictures, but managed to get some good ones amongst the horrible ones. Enjoy!

This was my favorite one...

A Visit With Papaw

Papaw came to visit us! We don't get to see our extended family too often, so this was a fun visit. Bryce had changed so much since his last visit in April and Brennan loved playing basketball and wrestling with Papaw. We missed seeing Ms. Linda this time and hope she can make it up for the next visit!

Dear Bryce,

You are 10 months old. My mind is sort of blown by that fact. And the fact that you'll be one in just two short months. With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, I have a feeling these next months will fly by even faster than normal. You certainly keep me on my toes. You're a busy, busy guy and are cute as a button. Here's what you have been up to lately. It's been a big month!

You are currently wearing size 3 diapers and mostly 9 month or 12 month clothes. At your nine-month check-up you only weighed 16 pounds 7 ounces. That put you in the zero percentile. Zero! The doctor wasn't worried about it at all; you're just an active, little guy. You were in the 40th percentile for length.

A little after that appointment, you started biting me while nursing. You wouldn't do it very hard, but it was certainly uncomfortable for me and you'd just laugh every single time. I realized you were cutting your top two teeth and assumed that was part of the reason for biting. You still weren't sleeping through the night at that point either. In fact we had several pretty bad nights right after you turned nine months where you were up twice a night still. The combination of your low weight, biting, and not sleeping through the night led me to buy some formula. (It took me three trips to the store to actually buy that expensive stuff!!) So for about two weeks now I've been pumping during the day and bottle feeding you breast milk mixed with formula. You've loved it! You've taken to the formula like a champ and I know you're getting more now since I'm topping off what I pump. I think it's helped you gain some weight and the best part is you're sleeping better! Several times you've made it all the way until after 5:30am before waking. I'll run in and nurse you on one side (you don't bite me when you're sleepy and nursing) and then you'll go back to sleep until 8am somedays. I feel like a new woman since I am FINALLY getting some sleep!

You babble like crazy now. You say "Dada" a lot and do seem to associate it with your Daddy. You say "baba" and "yaya" often, but I don't think they mean anything. You have said, "ma'" a few times. You try to say, "quack quack" too.

You still love clapping your hands. You are an expert pointer now. It's super cute. You give high fives and wave hi. You give me kisses when I ask for them. You make this cute scrunchy face now and love to stick out your tongue. You pull up on anything and everything now and will transition from one object to another while standing. You still get around by army crawling, but it's a super fast army crawl. You can also climb up steps now. Daddy just installed a baby gate at the bottom of the basement steps last night. You will also put your arms up to say "so big" when I ask how big you are.

This has been a fun month. I can say that now that you've been sleeping better. You seem to learn something new every single day. Brennan got excited because he's been trying to teach you to put balls into this giraffe toy and just the other day you figured it out. I love watching you figure stuff out like that. I also love watching Brennan and you become friends. You want to be right with him.

You're still taking two good naps each day and easily put yourself to sleep. I still use the Ergo, but you're getting pretty active in it. Thankfully you're still great in your car seat and stroller, so going out with you is usually very easy.

Your Papaw just left today and enjoyed visiting with us so much. It was especially nice that you've been taking a bottle because he was able to feed you. It's great that you've gotten to spend time with all your grandparents recently.

So many people keep telling me that you're going to be walking before long. I'm hoping they're wrong. You aren't steady on your feet at all, so I hope we still have a while. Momma's not ready for you to be walking. I already feel like I can't turn my back on you for more than a few seconds and when you start walking I think you'll keep me even busier. I am excited to see what this next has in store though. I'm excited for you to try more table foods now that you have four teeth. I'm excited for you start using more words and to introduce more signs to you. And most of all I'm excited to sleep!

You're a sweet boy and I love you so very much!

Love,
Momma

Bryce back at 9 months...

Today at 10 months. This was the best I could get. He was all over the place.

All.over.the.place.

AWANA Grand Prix

On Sunday night, Brennan competed in the AWANA Grand Prix. About two months ago, I purchased a $5 kit from church and Kyle immediately started planning the car he wanted to build. Here are some pictures of our night. Brennan had fun. It was pretty chaotic, but he liked cheering for his car and his friends' cars. His car won a few heats and ended up coming in second place overall in his division, so he got a trophy!

Happy Belated Halloween

We did a pretty terrible job of getting pictures of the boys dressed up. I didn't even attempt to get a picture of them together. Our church started a Light the Night Halloween event four years and we've been every year. Here's our little monster and our fish. (Brennan was a fish last year, but insisted on being a fish again this year. That was fine by me.)

Brennan's past Halloweens...