Brothers

One day I dressed the boys in their matching shirts (from Nana!) and tried to get a good picture of the brothers. However, I made the mistake of doing this while cartoons were on so most of my pictures look like this:



I did get a couple of good shots though.





Then Luke decided to give Brad a hug



and I had to take some video of Luke playing with Brad. This was back in April (the 8th) so Brad still couldn't sit up very well (he is better at it now, but still will fall over if you don't watch him) and Luke was definitely still in the mode to only acknowledge Brad if he felt like it. Luke is much better about that now, he even worries over Brad and will let you know "don't worry, I'm taking care of him." He has his jealous moments still for sure, but usually he is really sweet to Brad and will share toys better than I expect him too.

Really exciting video

Here is some really exciting footage of Brad eating apples and butternut squash for the first time. I enjoy it and I suspect some grandmas might like it, but unless you really like watching little babies learn to eat or you really just love watching Brad, you'll probably want to skip it :)

Apples (4/4/11)







Butternut squash (4/7/11)







Brad likes both apples and butternut squash. He continues to dislike carrots! He loves to try to grab the spoon, but if he is hungry he'll just let me shovel it in and I mean shovel it in. He gets mad if you are too slow. As always Luke and Noah are a big time distraction to him. I've gotten to calling them side-show Joe and Sparky as they seem to like to act up when Brad is feeding. I've had to ban them both from wherever I am while Brad nurses!

On a side note, I have really enjoyed having more time with this baby to make his baby food. Josh did some quick math and figured if you calculate my time and effort in making the food, the cost of just buying it pre-made is just about the same and depending on the price of certain foods, may be even cheaper. So I guess I'm not saving us that much money making it. Oh well, he'll be on to eating table foods so soon that the next order of baby food blends may get to be to complex to make at home for me anyway.

Luke goes to the dentist

At the beginning of April I took Luke to his first dental appointment. I was kind of worried about how he would do for the exam, he is fairly timid in new situations. I took him to a pediatric dentist that sets aside specific appointments for first-timers and goes real slow with them and tells you up front they'll only do as much as the child will let them and you can just come back in two week intervals until they can do the whole thing. We got there and had a little bit of a wait but Luke seemed to be ok. When they called us back he started getting nervous but he was interested in the new stuff at the same time. They have one big room with several patient chairs so it is a more open and friendly design than small individual rooms. Luke did really great letting the hygienist do the initial look and see and he brushed his teeth. When it came time to laying back in the chair he was not to happy but the hygienist suggested that I lay back and have him sit on top of me and that was ok with him. We just had to struggle a little bit to get him to cooperate but in the end he made it through the whole exam, and even did it again when the dentist himself looked too. No xrays this time, we go again in 6 months but Luke did really well for his first dental appointment!

The bird that wouldn't give up

While Josh's mom Robin was here on her spring break, she woke up one morning to a banging sound and discovered a bird (a Robin!) trying desperately to get into our house through the sliding glass door. The bird was relentless. It tried and tried all morning. We thought maybe it saw itself in the reflection and was trying to get at the "other bird."

It even tried again the next day and Josh scared it off eventually. But that was not the last we heard of the bird. A week or so later, I heard strange noise coming from the garage and found the same (I'm guessing) bird pecking away at a reflective garbage can we have out there... so weird! Haven't heard it since though.

cuteness

taken 3/31/11

Brad likes carrots?

Don't let the beginning of the video fool you, the answer to the question: does Brad like carrots? is a big NO, as can be seen by the end of the video.


Video taken 3/29/11

While Grammy was here we made some baby food for Brad. We did this also for Luke when he was this age and it was nice to carry on the tradition with Brad. The first food I made for Luke was carrots so I tried them with Brad. Let me tell you, Brad hates carrots. They are the only food that he consistently makes a gagging motion for when he eats them. I have to hide them with other foods, even mixing in rice cereal isn't enough. This week I mixed on ice cube (how I freeze the baby food) of carrots with one pear and one apple. He ate it but not with the usual vigor he usually eats with!



I checked Luke's baby book (or calendar rather) and turns out he didn't like carrots either!

Brad talking

Brad talking, until he notices the camera that is :)
Video taken 3/28/11