Saturday at Ian and Susan's

The Webster's had a cookout and it was a beautiful day spent at their residence with all the kids and friends. AJ loved going in and out of all the pools and the moon walk was a big hit even with the dads LOL. Scott and Sarah were also at the picnic and Sarah had a lot of fun in the pool, the moonwalk and the playscape.

Brian, Sarah in the back and Scott and AJ in the moonwalk

and Brian playing AJ Ball hehe

AJ sliding down

AJ tractor riding, and giving Brady a tractor ride too!

Patrick drawing on the black top, Patrick's beautiful smile

Brady is 2 months old

Brady is now 2+ months old. He had his 2 month appointment on 7/11 and weighed in at a very healthy 12.6 lbs (75 percentile) and was 24 and 1/4 inches long (90th percentile). He had his shots which he wasn't too thrilled about but made it through the day just sleeping a bit more than usual.


Brady is moving around a lot more, holding his head up and making lots and lots of noises trying to talk to us. He still loves his swing and is smiling and trying to laugh a lot. He looks at us and stares and then smiles that great big smile of his. Our little boy is growing fast!

Joey's Birthday

On Saturday June 21st we headed over to my brother's house to celebrate Joey's birthday. Joey is about 2 and a half months younger than AJ and AJ loves playing with him as well as his older cousins Jordan and Danny.

It was a beautiful day out and the boys had fun running around the yard and playing on the bikes and push cars. Joey loved his construction trucks cake - dirt and all! :) great job on the cake Kim!

Click HERE to see more pictures

AJ at the Park

AJ and mommy went to Casey Park - one of our many local parks this morning. I like this park because it's never overcrowded, most people go to the much larger park down the road. Most of the parks here have the sprinkler playground and AJ is such a fan of anything to do with water.

When we left the house it was clouding over pretty fast but by the time we got to the park the sun was out in full force. AJ was running around like a madman and even with his water shoes on he had one really good wipeout and the burns to prove it on his chest and by his elbow. That did not slow him down one bit though!

Click HERE to see more pictures

Growing Up Way Too Fast

Well I had my dentist appointment for a cleaning today. I took Brady with me and he slept through most of the appointment but then got restless. Charlene one of the wonderful receptionists asked if she could take him, if I minded and I said sure. so her and Barbara took care of him in the front and they were just all gushing over him . Well at the end of the appointment Charlene asks me if he's teething and I say "no, he's only a little over a month old!" well she says - but I see two white dots on the front - so she calls Dr. Wilson over and sure enough - Dr. Wilson confirms that it's two bottom teeth coming in!!!! ugghhhh I just can't believe it - this is way too fast for me! . You can definitely see the two white DOTS right on the gum line and you can feel the one on the right.

The other milestone - Brady turned over at around 3 weeks. I thought Brian was playing tricks on me at first :o) I had Brady on his back and I leave the room and come back a few minutes to find Brady on his side. A few days later the same thing - I leave the room and come back and he's on his tummy. I asked Brian if he had turned him and he said no. Our little man is growing up way too fast!!

Brady meets great grandma

We visited the Bell's on Sunday and part of the visit included going to visit Nonnie at her home so that she could meet her new great grandson. It was a short visit so we look forward to more visits in the near future! The visit coincided with Brady's feeding time so Nonnie got to feed him with a bit of Brian's help. There are more pictures of the visit on AJ's Bike blog below.

AJ's Bike Ride

On Sunday, we went to visit Nana & Papa Bell. They had a surprise for AJ - a 2-wheel bike! After Papa made some modifications to add the training wheels (yes, they ARE pink), AJ strapped on his helmet and was raring to go. The only problem was the rough surface Nana & Papa call their driveway... it's got a few peaks and valleys. AJ learned to navigate pretty well and can't wait to ride his new bike again soon! Click HERE for pictures and a little video I made is below.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow(s)

Today was supposed to be what the weatherman termed "a wash". He couldn't have gotten the forecast any more wrong today - yes, it was cloudy for the better part of the day but it wasn't the total rainout predicted. We went out for dinner and watched the stormclouds roll in as we finished. From there we went to the local WalMart and the skies opened up. When we came out, the rain had passed and there was a cool sunset under the cloud ceiling. The best part was not a single - but a DOUBLE rainbow! I don't think I've ever seen such a brilliant rainbow - especially one you could follow end to end. And there were two of them! Very cool. We took some pictures with our cell phones - along with a lot of other people in the parking lot. And I happened to have the video camera in the car as well. Click HERE for the pictures.

Dinner With Friends and Our New Babysitter (hmmmm maybe not lol)...

On Tuesday night we had our friends Chris, Korin and Kim over for dinner. This was not your conventional dinner party. Our friend Chris was the Chef for the night. He made a WONDERFULLY DELICIOUS gourmet meal!! The menu consisted of yolk topped proscuitto wrapped Scallops on a cauliflower puree for an appetizer, an asian salad with sugared almonds and mandarins, chipotle pork tenderloin with parmesan crisps, mashed sweet potatoes and asparagus and Korin's famous chocolate truffle cake. YUMMMM is all I can still say!! We had great food, great wine and a wonderful time with friends.

Now Kim had never or only once held a baby so after Korin got her fill holding Brady he was handed over to Kim. Here is the progression of the Kim holding Brady pictures....

awww sweet innocent baby!!! (Brady...not Kim!)

Ummm... wrong "bottle" Kim :)An AJ tradition is that anytime any of the "girl" friends come over they have to play on his sit and spin. Lisa and Kristen had a blast on the sit and spin on New Year's eve - we STILL have to blog those video clips!!! Kim had her chance to show off her skills on the sit and spin too!

A high 5 from AJ!

Brady's Nursery

Well Brady's nursery is finally coming together. The room was painted by Brian before we found out we were pregnant. At 1st I didn't care for the color, I thought it was a little on the darker side but now with what I have in the room, colors-wise it goes really well. Daddy put up the wall decorations the other day:

Brady is still not sleeping in the room yet - I put him in the crib once in a while during the day if I need to do something while i'm in the room, or while i'm upstairs, etc.

I debated at 1st using AJ's bedding BUT considering that EVERYTHING that was AJ's is now Brady's I figured new bedding wouldn't break the bank. Classic Pooh is the theme and I love it!

Brady's got one great closet! - this kid has so much clothing!!! this entire closet is 0-3 months right now plus I have 2 other boxes of "warmer" 0-3 months clothing for later in the summer. I also have between 10 -12 more boxes of clothing that go through 2T/3T.

We kept the dresser that was in the room originally - I just put the changing pad on top.

Here is our special sweetie enjoying his crib:

Nana Bell did this cross-stitch birth announcement for Brady:

On the other side of the crib we kept the queen bed that was in the room should we have people decide they want to spend the night. I still have some boxes to clear out of the room but for the most part the nursery is done! about time right?? :o)

Touch a Truck 2008

This past Saturday we went to the annual Touch a Truck event at one of the elementary schools in a neighboring town. AJ as usual had a lot of fun. He liked being able to go in a lot of the trucks, buses, boats and race cars and I think his favorite part was trying to make the horns beep on each of the vehicles. He saw the mail truck and asked if Papa Bell was in it. Shockingly - he did not want to go in the fire truck this year he just wanted to "see" it.







Click HERE to see more pictures

Brady's 1st Bath

Brady had his 1st full bath and he was great for most of it until mommy decided to wash his hair. He wasn't too fond of that! Daddy did some creative photoshop for modesty's sake. AJ was very
happy to lend a helping hand while I was trying to bathe Brady.

Nice relaxing warm bath


still enjoying the bath -
Thanks for the cover up dad!


Mom HAD to wash his hair :)
and Brady was NOT a fan!


If looks could kill! lol


Click HERE to see more pictures

Video from the Circus!

I was trying out some new functionality with GoogleDocs and YouTube. This post is similar to a PowerPoint presentation with 3 "slides" that include 3 videos I shot that day. Check them out!



Click on the arrows in the lower left corner to select each video.
Click on the icon next to the speaker (right corner of video window) to make the video bigger.

Baby Brady

Here is our little man showing some team spirit and hanging out in his swing


getting ready for a nap....


and... sleepy time!!!!

A Trip to the Circus

On Saturday May 10th we took AJ and Brady to the circus. It was the 1st time for both boys and quite a long time for mommy and daddy. There was a pre-show an hour before the event and we had lots of fun with close-up looks at the elephants, acrobats, clowns and other performers. AJ even got to ride one of the clown bikes that was in the show!!!

Unfortunately the time of the show was right during nap time so AJ didn't get a nap before the show. He was out on dad's lap about 20 minutes into the show but mainly missed just acrobats. He woke up in time for intermission and then was awake for the 2nd part of the show. He got to see the cool elephants which he was so excited about. He's been calling it "the elephant circus" since we told him we were taking him to the circus.

Brady slept through the entire show waking up at the finale screaming for food. We had a great time at the circus.

Click HERE to see more pictures from the show.

A Visit from Nana and Papa Bell

Nana and Papa Bell came for a visit to meet Brady on Sunday. They came bearing gifts for both kids and AJ had tons of fun with Nana and Papa. AJ kept them both entertained outside because it was a very nice day and when we were inside AJ made sure he had their full attention playing with Play Doh or reading books. He certainly wore nana out this time around!

Click HERE to see more pictures

Interesting Tidbits

Birth Date vs Actual Date

One of the nurses told me yesterday that it's very unusual for a baby to actually be born in his/her due date.  I believe she told me it was around 2%.  A quick Google search says it's no more than 4-5%.  Go Brady!  Andrew was a week late. 

 

Andrew vs Brady

AJ weighed in at 7 lbs, 8 ounces and Brady at 7 lbs, 15 ounces.  Both boys were 21" at birth, but Brady has the edge here too by being a whopping 1/8" longer!

 

Baby Boom!

Indications are that we're in the midst of another small baby boom - at least in Hollywood anyway!  I can believe that - you should have seen the nursery at the hospital!  There were 12-14 babies in there!!  I don't recall quite as many when AJ was born.  Gotta love Wikipedia - they have a chart that shows an upward tick that has been growing since about 1998.

 

Another productive day at work.  Can't wait until vacation next week!

Momma's Boys

AJ finally got to meet his little brother and he was very excited. He wanted to hold him, gave him kisses and at the end of his visit asked if he could take Baby Brady home to take him to school and show him to his teachers. He settled for a printed picture to take to school instead. I'm so excited for my boys and here is a picture that i'm sure i'll have to print in a few years when they are bickering and fighting over every little thing LOL

Click HERE to see more pictures