One More...

Eric bought a tablet and Alex is now obsessed with playing a golf game on it....it amazes me how he instantly knew how to use it and play the game.  Brodie is pretty equally obsessed with it and anything electronic...(I am pretty sure Alex is at least wearing underwear in this picture ;))

Fire Station

A few pictures Papa sent me of Alex's trip to the fire station...

MICHIGAN

We had a "bonus" Fall trip to Michigan this year.  My dad won tickets to the MSU vs. Notre Dame game and invited Eric to go, so we all road tripped it up to Michigan.  Eric just stayed through the weekend and the boys and I stayed on for some additional time.

Sadly, I forgot to take pictures on most days so I don't have photos to go with a lot of the events of our jam packed week.

Thursday:  Drove to Michigan.  An uneventful trip and the boys really did amazingly well being stuck in car seats for 11 hours.   We spent the night at Eric's parents and his sister and her boys came over for dinner.  Alex was thrilled to see his cousins!

Friday:  Alex spent the day with Grammy (Eric's mom) and his cousins.  He got to play a lot with Kasjen and loved every minute of it.  Then Alex he had a special sleepover at Grammy's house with Kasjen.  He did a great job sleeping over without Mommy and Daddy there.

Saturday:  Alex was pretty exhausted by his sleepover, so we just laid low at Grandma and Papa's in Grand Haven. 

Sunday:  We spent the day in Grand Haven and Uncle Todd and Aunt Jen came over for the day.  Uncle Todd and Alex played some golf - pretending to be Tiger and Phil.  I took Alex down to the beach.  The water felt like melted ice cubes but that did not stop Alex from swimming in it.

Monday:  We met Grammy at the zoo.  Sadly most of the animals were quite lazy when we were there.  Alex loved the reptile house and seeing the alligator and big snakes.

 
 
 
 

These birds were seriously aggressive and they would not stop landing on me!
 
 
Tuesday:  On Tuesday we went with Grandma to the Grand Rapids Children's Museum.  It was a great place with so many great exhibits.  Alex loved it and could have spent all day playing there.  
The Farm -



Sandbox -

Grocery Store -

Diner -

Fire Station -

 
Bee Keeper -



Helicopter-


Veterinarian -

 
 
Drums-

Puppets

Bubbles-

Brodie got in on some of the fun too....


 
 
 
Wednesday:  We went and played at Alex's cousin -Isaac's house.  He has a lot of Toy Story toys that Alex loved playing with.  In the afternoon Papa took Alex fishing and to the fire station where he got to drive fire trucks and turn on the lights. Big Fun!  One of Alex's favorite things to do at Papa and Grandma's house was to pick tomatoes from the garden...


Thursday:  We spent the day at Aunt Ang's house.  Alex played with Kensi while he waited for Kasjen to get out of school - they had big fun splooshing rocks in sewer grates and picking and opening up milk weeds.  Once Kasjen got home from school they played outside on the tramp and we went to a play ground. 


Friday:  Long long drive back to Alabama.  The kids did well, but it is just a long day!  My mom drove for all but 10 hours so I could sit in back and entertain the boys.  We pulled off at an exit to change Brodie's dirty diaper - lucky for Alex it was the Dinosaur World exit and there was a big Triceratops in the parking lot..

Grandma came back to Alabama with us.  It was wonderful to have her here.  Eric and I got a date night and I got to get a lot of errands and appointments taken care of.  Grandma spent a lot of quality time with Brodie so I could do some one on one things with Alex.  Alex loves weeding in the garden with her and Grandma even played lots of tackle football.  Alex was beside himself today when Grandma left.  He was literally sobbing and saying how much he missed her and wanted her to come back.  He had tears running down his face and said "Momma I am crying so hard my eyes are dripping" :). 
 

Happy Birthday Daddy!

We have been on vacation, but before I blog about our trip I need to catch up on a few other blogs. 

We celebrated Eric's birthday a couple of weeks ago.   Alex gets so excited for birthday celebrations.  I let him go to the dollar store and pick out anything he wanted for Eric's present.  I gave absolutely no input and he picked out a lighter (yes he has picked this for him before- Eric uses it to light fireworks) and also a bag of peanuts in the shell :).  Alex loves to eat these with Eric when we get take out from Logan's.  He picked out Sesame Street wrapping paper and a birthday card with two little girls on front :).  He helped me make the cake and wrapped the presents himself - he cut the paper and put on the tape.  He was so thrilled to be part of the whole process

As you can see - Alex couldn't wait to start the birthday celebration - first thing in the morning!

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Watching Fish at the Gardens

9 Month Stats

We had Brodie's 9 Month Wellness Check today.  We are once again thankful for a healthy baby boy. He is growing and developing right on track.

Here are his stats -
*Weight - 21lbs 4 oz - 50-70%
*Height - 29 1/4 in - 80%
(I figure this is always relative - how much he squirms and how hard the nurse pulls to straighten them out - cause this boy is tall!)
*Head -46 1/4 cm - 75%

For comparison - Alex's 9 Month Stats -
*Weight: 20 lbs - between the 30-50th percentile.
*Height: 29.50 inches - 90th percentile
*Head: 47 cm - 90th percentile.

They are close - Brodie appears he is going to be the more "solid"/stocky one of the two...we shall see.  

9 Months Old

Brodie is 9 Months Old!  Basically we can sum up Brodie at 9 months old by saying HE IS ON THE MOVE!  Gate installation was the theme of our weekend.  Brodie discovered stairs on Friday and thinks they are great fun.  He has also had some fun splashing in the toilet.  He is just fast and on the go!

 

Here are a few other things about Brodie at this stage.

*He plays AMAZINGLY well by himself.  Brodie will play forever in the playroom, just exploring and playing with toys.  I feel guilty that I don't interact with him enough because he is just so content to entertain himself.

*He is crawling everywhere but he has started to use his back leg to push himself forward when crawling - makes for a funny little crawl.

*LOVES FOOD!  He is getting a little testy about being spoon fed and really just wants to feed himself finger food.  He is currently eating puffs, cheerios, carrots, peas, potatos, and bananas.  I need to give him more table food because he loves it.

*He has become a lot more aware of noises when we are outside.  He looks for birds when he hears them singing, looks for airplanes, etc.

*Brodie currently has 4 teeth and is working on 2 more on the top - which I am going to blame for him waking up in the middle of the night for the past 3 nights.  Before this week he had finally become a consistently great napper and sleeper, but the past week he has not been doing great with either.  Hopefully he gets back on track soon.

*Brodie loves going for walks and babbles most of the way.

*He continues to be such a sweet and happy baby.  He is so easy going and just goes with the flow.  

1st Day of School

 Alex had his first day of "school" today!  For those in the North, there is a Southern Phenomenon called Moms Morning Out.  A lot of local churches offer these programs for infants/toddlers through prekindergarten.  You can choose how many morning a week your child goes and it is basically a little preschool for 3-4 hours.  Alex goes from 9:15-1:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  They work on letters, numbers, colors, and other readiness skills.  They have chapel and music class as well. 

Alex was very excited to go to school today.  He insisted on picking out his own clothes and had to carry his backpack and lunchbox all by himself.
 
We have talked a lot about school and he was excited to go all by himself and have Mommy and Brodie go home and then come back and pick him up.  Alex did great going right into the classroom and saying goodbye.  Mommy may have shed a tear or two once I was in the van :). 

His friend, Rory, is in his class and her mom said when they got there that Alex had so immediately switch seats to sit by her and took all his play dough supplies with him.  She snapped a couple of pictures...


 
When I went to pick Alex up they were watching a video and he didn't want to leave.  He said "I want to stay here forever".  He was completely exhausted and wouldn't really tell me anything on the way home.  He fell right to sleep the minute he got into bed.  

Throughout the day today little bits and pieces of his morning at school have come out...
"Momma we sit criss cross applesauce"
"Joe didn't stay in his chair and she had to tell him three times, one, two, three" :)
"I sang really loud at school"

Then Alex wanted to play school and would say "its time for lunch" or "sit on your circle", etc.  And a few times he couldn't think of something and would ask me if I knew what his teacher liked to say :).

Hopefully Alex continues to love it and do well.  His teacher said he was so sweet and did perfect :).  (pretty sure she told everyone that).