And He's Off.....

Brodie officially started crawling yesterday...he is still very slow and deliberate and he still will give himself a little push with his foot now and then, but he is crawling and into everything.  He is exploring everything - opening cupboards and drawers - reaching up and pulling things off of tables, etc.  Need to baby proof ASAP!!

 Well - look what I found....

 

 Brodie loves to look outside and of course play with the blinds before I raised them and ruined his fun...

 Oh what fun to empty the books off the shelf....

Best Friends Forever

Little Gym and More...

This morning we had a play group with some of our friends at The Little Gym.  It is a local place that offers gymnastics and other classes for children.  They were offering a special for play groups to come and try the gym out for free.  Alex LOVED it and demonstrated to all that he is ALL BOY.  I think he ran into or knocked over every other child there sometime this morning.  He just went full speed from the minute we entered the room - we definitely need to work on being aware of others in his surroundings!  Brodie hung out in the Bjorn and loved watching all the kids.  They have classes for babies and the instructors did a few things with him, but I pretty much feared for his safety if I put him down on the ground!

Parallel Bars -

 Rings-

Somersaults -

 Circle Time - (jumping, running, clapping, galloping, etc)
 
BUBBLES!

Not sure what these are called :)...
 


Balance Beam...


 Other Random Pics from our life...
And so it begins...Alex and Brodie's new favorite activity - "wrestling".  Alex lays down in front of Brodie and Brodie crawls all over Alex...fun for all and always seconds away from disaster. 

 

Brodie's new favorite outside activity - however, I need a seat belt for this car because he is constantly trying to crawl out of it...

8 Months Old

Brodie is all of a sudden a baby on the move.  Over the weekend he learned how to get from lying down to sitting up by himself.  He loves to practice this move when it is time to go down for a nap :).  He also decided to start pulling himself up to standing on this play table.  Brodie is starting to get across the room doing an inchworm/rolling/army crawling combination move.  He prefers to be standing at is getting antsier a lot quicker when left on the floor to play - he wants to move.

Here I go...gonna try to crawl...






We captured the first time he pulled up - Alex was trying to stop him - like "you can't do that!" :)

 Just decided to snap some shots of this sweetie one afternoon....

 Baby at play.... (spit up as I was taking pics) :)

 Brodie is doing pretty well sleeping - except for trying all of his new tricks at nap time.  It took 30 minutes for him to get down this morning because he kept pulling up on his crib railing, just so proud of himself :).   He eats around 6:30-7:00 and then goes down for the night.  He is up anywhere between 5:30-7:00 in the morning.  He takes two naps and they vary in length from 1-3 hours.  Sometimes he will take his big one - 2-3 hours in the morning - so we never know what the day will bring, but he is a good napper and has been sleeping through the night pretty consistently now.

Brodie loves baby food and gets pretty mad if we wait too long between bites.  I just gave him some pieces of puffs this week and he gummed them like a pro, but wasn't really sure what to think of them.  Will start some more "real food" this month. 

Brodie is very vocal - he is saying "dada", "gaga" and various other sounds.

Being outside is still his favorite place to be.  If he is ever fussy as he is sometimes at night after dinner we just head outside and he is happy as can be. 

Brodie loves swimming in the pool and loves bath time.  He just splashes away.

Brodie is still a very easy going and happy baby.  Some evenings he is a little more demanding and wants to be held and given some attention (just in time for when Daddy comes home!).  Otherwise he just goes with flow and hangs out and is always quick with a smile! 

Melt...Down

Thankfully Alex is not really a crier or the meltdown type...but it was the perfect storm last weekend - he was tired and hungry and "injured".  We had been out running errands and were home late for dinner and despite having a snack, he was starving.  Then he fell down on his way out of the van and his elbow was bleeding.  He would settle down and then look at his elbow and start crying all over again.  We couldn't resist engaging him and taping him for future blackmail ;).  Here is a little snip it - he went on later to say that the only thing that would make him happy would be to go to Target :).