I’ve been working on taking pictures of the kids so I can enter them in the Regis and Kelly baby contest. No, I don’t want them to be models, but it’d be fun to see them on the cover of a magazine and it’d be great to have the money for college. Here are two cute ones of Emily today.
Be sure to click on the pictures so you can see them better.
He’s wearing my shoes.
You might notice there is a little recurring theme of Emily in chairs in recent posts. She working hard on climbing up in the chairs herself but can’t do it yet. But when I put her in the chair she seems so proud to be there. She just sits and smiles and kicks her feet.
The day before her birthday. She is so proud of herself for being able to get into Brenden's chair.
Stats:
Weight: 20 lbs 8.8 oz (41%)
Length: 29 in (46%)
Head: 17 3/4 (50%)
She got four shots and took those much better than her brother who got the h1n1 mist in his nose and freaked out!
After having a blowout of a 1st birthday party for Brenden, we decided to go low key for Emily’s big day. They say the party is for the parents at this age and since we’ve already had ours, we skipped it this time around. So I hope they are right about that and that Emily doesn’t some day say she hates us ’cause we didn’t have a big party!
Hard to tell but it's an E and then 1 candle on the cake. Brenden wasn't impressed. He thought there should be a number 1 candle.
Looks like it's Brenden's birthday doesn't it?
This man needs a 12 step program.
In case you can’t tell he’s using his laptop and the internet on his iphone at the same time.
Emily was excited to be driving in this car cart. All of the sudden she’s just big enough to do so much more. Both kids were in awe of all the blow up displays that Lowe’s had. 3 aisles worth. Who knew going in for a new kitchen faucet would be so exciting.
Last week we went to the park. The weather was beautiful all week and I was disappointed in myself that we hadn’t been at the park every day. But we all played hard to try and make up for it.
Brenden always looks at the rock wall and when I offer to help him climb it he moves on to something else. He’s climbed down it a little in the past, but never up it. I was watching Emily and when I looked back at him he’d climbed up. Quickly. I was so proud of him 1) because he’s never attempted it before and 2) because I’ve seen older kids with both hands need help with it.
He also climbed this for the first time:
And Emily immensely enjoyed her first time in a park swing. Love her faced turned up to the sun.
I swear she climbed in on her own. And when I saw her in there I told Brenden. While I went to get the camera, he shut her in, but she didn’t mind.
She is a very good eater. She wants to be independent and tries to take the spoon every time. She always ends up such a mess.
I don’t think to open the front door very often. I think I also avoid it because the dogs will bark at anything they see and it kind of drives me crazy. But it’s very nice to have the sunshine come in and the kids always enjoy it.
He wanted to be able to play trains by everyone else so we took the table off its stand and moved it out into the living room. No longer content to be confined to the table, he’s begun building tracks from one end of the living room to the other.
I wanted to get a picture of him watching tv because he was so intent but when he saw the camera, this is the look I got.
I won’t take naked shots of the boy, but I loved how focused he was on playing in the tub.
One night when Brenden was supposed to be asleep I walked by his room on my way to bed. I found him like this, with his book propped up on his knees reading.
Once upon a time two kids, a brother and a sister, happily played together. The brother pretended his orange whistle was a conductor’s whistle with magic sparkle that would take him to the island of Sodor. The sister chewed on whatever she could get in her mouth.
But after a time the sister was no longer content with the objects around her. And she stole the brother’s magic whistle.
The brother was furious and demanded the whislte back. The sister being smaller than the boy had no choice but to let the whistle be gently removed from her hands and mouth. She half listened as the brother told her, “Don’t ever, ever steal my whistle again. Don’t do that. It’s a no, no no!”
After the tirade that seemed as if it would never end, the little sister expressed her sincerest apologies and promised never to steal the coveted whistle again.
This year Brenden wanted to be Thomas the Tank Engine for halloween. I asked him several times and gave him a lot of choices and every time he said Thomas. I also let him pick Emily’s costume with a choice between a fairy or a lady bug. He wanted her to be a lady bug, a choice I’m pretty sure she was not happy with.
We got a very short Halloween story to read this year and Brenden was all ready to say, “Trick-or-Treat. Trick-or-Treat. Give me something good to eat” just like the little girl in the book, only with a please tacked on. He was very excited and couldn’t wait for the day he could be Thomas and Emily could be a lady bug.
This was a very exciting change from the boy who didn’t even want to put his Bob the Builder costume on last year. The boy who didn’t even want to go up to people’s doors.
We had planned on going to a city sponsored event for little kids on Friday to ease into things, but Brenden came down with an ear infection Thursday night so we skipped it.
I guess our neighborhood starts trick-or-treating much later than I would have though because there really weren’t many kids out when we were. But we made our way around the block and stopped at any house that looked inviting. Brenden didn’t manage to say anything to people but he was very brave about going up to the doors and holding out his bag. Maybe next year he’ll speak!
Emily was tired and not at all thrilled about not having her feet free. But she sure looked cute.
Getting excited to get into his costume.
Casper the friendly ghost.
Waiting for it to get dark enough to set out.
Afterwards, watching the greatness that is The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.
I have lots of things I want to write about and I hope to get that done over the weekend. But for now, here is a cute little clip of Brenden talking and singing.
Uh oh. I said I’d post Emily’s 9 month update and I didn’t. Time to do that now that she’s half way to 10 months.
Stats:
Weight: 18 lbs 11.5 oz
Length: 27 1/8 in
She’s just below average on both. But this little girl is a big explorer. She is cruising everywhere and trying to climb everything. She really wants to be doing whatever it is big brother can do. She’s getting more personality every day and so far, it’s a sunny disposition. She loves to laugh and show off her one dimple.
Banging and chewing on my brush.
Having fun at a mall play area.
Not sure what’s going on with my pictures not linking to the bigger version like they usually do. Maybe sometime when Patrick has some free time he’ll look at it for me.
Brenden has been saying, “Picture puzzle. Picture Puzzle. Picture this.” It’s from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and it’s stuck in my head. Plust I feel like all I post lately is pictures. But Emily will be 9 months tomorrow which means a visit to the doctor on Tuesday so I’m sure I’ll have an update on that.
Here are just a few pictures from the past week.
The smilingest baby girl in the world.
Showing off her teeth.
Giving Daddy some love.
He just looked so cute and sporty I had to take a picture. But he wouldn't stop drinking his milk.
He found Patrick's shoes and wore them all over the house.
Last week I took the kids to the mall in Frisco. The play area was very busy at first. One kid grabbed on to Brenden’s leg and basically shoved him off the top of a rubber waterfall. He was not happy, but quickly got back into playing. Eventually it slowed down enough in there for me to put Emily down and let her have some fun too. She took right to climbing on things and through the tunnels.
Later that day Brenden was eating some yogurt and came up to me looking like this:
“Ho ho ho, I’m Santa Claus,” he said. See all his angry red bug bites?
Emily was so happy here I had to take her picture. And I didn’t want Brenden to feel left out, so his is below.
One night I was cooking dinner and put Emily in her exersaucer. She’s really getting too big for it, but I needed her safe while I cooked. After I was done cooking I got her out and this is where she went:
She’s just such a happy girl! And yes, these pictures were all taken in the same week! Just a smidge of variation in the weather.
One day I was really losing my cool with Brenden and I guess it was showing because he looked up at me as I put his shoes on and said, “be patient Mom.” It was like God himself was speaking to me. I had really needed the reminder to have patience with him at that moment and it gave me goosebumps for him to say it.
Somehow patience evolved. Now I get told to be patient or patience whenever he doesn’t like what I’m saying to him. If I sing it’s, “Mom, be patience. I told you.” If I correct him more of the same. If I ask him a question he doesn’t want to answer or tell him to go potty or to bed more patience are needed. If only he knew how patient I was being with the whole patience thing!
Another day recently he really got me again. We always tell him that if someone asks about his little hand he can tell them he was just born that way. Well, we were playing with his toy kitchen together and he accidentally slammed my finger in the fridge door and it really hurt. He apologized and asked if I was ok and I said yes but that it really hurt. His response? “It’s ok Mom, you were just born that way.” Loved it.
Yesterday I took the kids to Toys R Us. We were searching for a toy to be Emily’s special toy so that she might stop snatching Brenden’s special Mickey Mouse Clubhouse toy and characters. Brenden took a test drive in all the cars and pronounced this one his favorite.
This morning before leaving the house he decided he needed to wear his conductor’s hat.
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