Videos of Brad

A couple of videos of Brad :) Here he is talking to me, on February 7th, 2011. He has become quite the little chatterbox and we love it! Later that same day, we tried feeding him rice cereal for the first time. I'll spare you the long video of the very first tries (since he mostly spat everything out!) and leave you with this shorter version once he started to figure it out (and only spit out half of everything!).

Brothers

I love watching this relationship develop!

chillin

Brad, just chillin. Trying to work on sitting up :)



picture taken 1/28/11

The shirt says it all

3 month comparison

Checking in with the two boys at 3 months old :) I like doing this since I didn't even start this blog until Luke was 8 months old and about to undergo his surgery to have his hemangioma on his arm removed.

At 3 months, Luke's nasal bridge hemangioma was at full size, this was about one week before he had the steroid injection to stop/regress its growth. At 3 months Luke was around 13 pounds and was around 23 inches long. Oh and Luke was sleeping like at champ through the night already by this time :)





At 3 months, Brad was around 13.5 pounds and around 24.5 inches long. He smiles so easily! Not sleeping through the night at this point, that won't come until oh actually this week at 6 months old.





I think they definitely look like brothers, and both still look a lot like Josh!

The boys with their uncle and aunt

Neil and Ansev came to visit us MLK weekend, braving the treacherous driving conditions here in Atlanta. We had a great time and we thank them for the babysitting!

Snowstorm!

The biggest snowstorm we've had since living in these northern-ish regions of Alabama and Georgia hit in early January. Weathermen predicted it would be fierce, but what we didn't predict was that we'd be snowed in to our house from Sunday evening until Wednesday afternoon. Even then, schools were closed the whole week, but Josh did go back to work on Thursday. Of course during this mess I lost a crown and had to get out to the dentist to replace it..thanks to great neighbors who were able to watch my boys so I didn't have to take them out in that mess!

Some pics from that crazy week! The evening it started snowing, it came down fast, about 6 inches in a couple of hours (I know you real northerners are laughing at this but 6 inches of snow and ice shut down this whole city!)

Front yard



Back deck



Josh walking Noah the next morning-hey a dog has still gotta go...





Luke and Josh went out to play for a little while





Brad and I bundled up just to make it out there in time for one picture, then Luke was ready to come inside :)

Finishing up the trip...

During our last few days in Florida, we got together with Josh's mom and dad and brother and had lunch and went to Parksdale Farms for some yummy strawberry shortcake! I forgot my camera so no pictures of the yumminess :(

Brad and Uncle Matt having a serious conversation



Now posing for a picture



It is a New Year's Eve tradition to have fondue! And it was delicious, we had quite a spread and Luke got to experience the tradition. We didn't make it to midnight, but had a great time anyways!





Luke so badly wanted to take our picture, but poor Brad just wasn't feeling it.

Exploring

Our next adventure was a trip to Great Explorations. My parents joined me and the boys and we met up with Jennifer and her sons Charlie and James to go play at Great Explorations. The boys had a blast, what a fun place for them to play with so much to do!

My dad, clearly happy to be there :)



The little guys, Brad and James doing what 2 month olds do!



Charlie and Luke riding on the pull seats



Luke, searching out what to do next!



The fun was followed by a great lunch at Panera's! We had a great time getting together!

Fun with Friends

While the boys and I were still enjoying the sun in Florida, we took a day trip to Orlando to meet up with my friends Jenn and Craig and their son Clark at downtown Disney. Clark is 6 weeks older than Luke and we were excited for them to get together.

Luke and Clark





My mom has loved Cinderella since she was a child



Brad went too :)



Luke climbed up onto Craig's lap, he was a bit scared of the rainstorms at the Rainforest Cafe.
Luke with Jenn and Craig



The boys riding the train



Trying to get a picture of Jenn and me with the boys, neither wanted their picture taken!





So good to see them!

Papa and his boy

Mostly just for me :)

Posting this video today mostly so that I can look back at it and remember a day spent with my little boys. This video was taken two days after Christmas, which also happened to be our 7th wedding anniversary. But, as in almost all the past years since we moved out of Florida, Josh had to be back at work and I stayed in Fl. At least I know we'll both be in Florida for our next anniversary thanks to Neil and Ansev's New Year's Eve wedding this year :)

Brad's Baptism

When Luke was born, he had him baptized at my parent's church when he was 2 months old. We had Brad baptized at Josh's parents church (and the church Josh grew up attending) when he was 2 months old too. Brad was baptized the day after Christmas and our immediate families were there to celebrate with us. We did miss Jayce though! She had to work Christmas night at the hospital and go back to work again that evening.





Brad wore the same baptismal outfit as Luke. He also had a new sweater. This sweater was made by my Mummu (my mom's mom) and my aunt Susan. My aunt Susan found the body of the sweater started at Mummu's house after Mummu passed away and then she finished up the arms and sent it to Brad. It was very special to have him wear it.



Neil, Ansev, Brad, and Luke later that day. Josh had to return to Atlanta for work after the baptism. Luke, Brad, and I stayed at my parent's house until New Year's.

Christmas afternoon

After Christmas morning with my side of our family, we packed up and headed to St. Pete to have Christmas afternoon with Josh's side of the family. We took lots more video than pictures there and since I am having such a problem loading videos lately, I'll just try to post one. In this video Luke opens a Mater alarm clock. Josh and I got this for him so that we could try to get him to stay in bed until at least 7 am. I am very sorry to say it hasn't worked at all, but then again we haven't really tried the alarm part...it may just take some more reinforcement. Luke wakes up so early these days. For example, this morning I got up to feed Brad at 5:20 am and Luke's light was already on. Usually he is up around 6 I think. He's pretty good about staying in his room for a little while reading books.



Sweet baby



Pete the cat book, he loves it!



Another present we gave Luke, or maybe it was more of a present to ourselves...headphones for the DVD player!

Christmas morning with a 3 year old is the best!

Christmas morning with a three year old who really gets that he is getting stuff was so much fun. There were presents galore and he was ready to go!



Let's open stockings first. This was strange, we never do this in our family, we usually forget about the stockings and then remember them later. I think it must have been Josh's suggestion since he grew up opening his stocking first :)



Luke: "Dad, stop taking my picture. I have presents to open!"



Luke opened every gift with a "Wow" or "Ooh" he was super excited about everything! A tractor!







Video "Get a tissue daddy"... we have heard this phrase pretty much repeatedly for 4 months now. Yes we are working on getting him to wipe his own nose, currently occurring about 30% of the time.



This next video is too funny...scratch that, was too funny. I can't get it to load so I'll just have to describe what you would have seen.
Luke opened a shirt and he chucked it at me. Up until then he had been so happy with all the stuff he'd been opening and then we got on a small clothes run, so I guess with this last shirt he'd seen enough clothes and threw this one at me. We all died laughing! The rest of the video was just him opening more things, he did open a Gator shirt and wanted to put it on right away, he stripped off his pajama shirt, nearly falling over in the process, to put on his new Gator gear. Yes, we have taught him early and taught him right!

Christmas with small children really is more fun!

Brad, how was your first Christmas?
Thumbs up!

Christmas Eve

Ok, this is getting sad, it is April 4th and I'm just now posting about Christmas Eve. Maybe I'll get caught up to my usual two months behind pace sometime soon. (Let's all say a little prayer that Brad will start to sleep more at night and then mommy may have more energy during the day!...On that note, I am super pleased to say that he did sleep from 8pm to 4:40 am last night!!)

Back to Christmas Eve, we got all dressed up for church and tried to take a family picture. Luke wasn't having it, this is the best we could get.



Then we tried with just us and Brad :)



When we got home from church, we let Luke open one gift.
They turned out to be shoes, but he still loved them.











"Put them on right now!"



Happy with his new kicks! (which, by the way, are already worn out 3 months later, that kid plays hard!)