HO! HO! HO!

10 Months Old...Sooo BIG!

Well Mr Brody is getting big, very adventurous and quiet fearless at times! As you can see from the pictures below his favorite thing to do right now is stand up and once he's feeling comfortable with that he'll try climbing onto any surface. The two pictures below are from daycare in which he had climbed onto the cylinder mat and then wanted to get onto the exersaucer! He's also learned how to wave, in fact sometimes you even get the two handed wave if he's really excited to see you! He also knows how to clap and likes to move to music. He now has 4 teeth, top and bottom front teeth. He's been eating a lot of what we eat these days and is less interested in baby food, which means we have to be good about meal planning and eating since we have a little mouth to feed!

Each day gets more and more fun. His personality is really coming through and he's a happy little guy...I'm always excited to get home from work to see him...and Jason too!

Clearly he doesn't need any help, he's got it under control!

A ride down the hall at daycare with lots of waves to friends!

Standing up always makes his super happy, he doesn't enjoy sitting much these days!

Breakfast with Santa

Saturday we took Brody to "Breakfast with Santa", a Junior League event at the Minnetonka Country Club. It was a very nice and what was even better is that we only waited in line to see the big guy himself for about 5-10 minutes. Once we got up there Brody was already staring down Santa and from the time we set Brody on Santa's lap, he didn't take an eye off him. No matter what we did to get his attention there was NO way he was looking at us...no tears, no whining, nothing, so intense concentration on Santa!

Brody and his little friend Kate...

Brody with his good buddy Landon! Landon is a trip these days, turning 1 in October he is on the move and NO time for photos. The minute we'd get them situated for the picture he's was off! Too cute!

Then I had a great idea that we'd get a cute picture of the 4 of us...yep...you see how successful that was!

I did manage to get this picture of Landon and Brody trying to zip up each others sweaters! Making sure each other look nice before they see Santa of course!JRo and I gave up and opted for our own spicy picture minus the boys!

Old Chicago Friends Reunite...

On our way back to Minneapolis we stopped to see Darren, Erin and Mya in Council Bluffs Iowa. Darren and Jason were friends in Chicago and I got to know Erin as well. We didn't spend too much time together as couples back in the day but Erin and I have spent a lot of time connecting in cyber space...odd but fun! Erin is the one who really got me into blogging and taught me the ropes of how to create one...and ever since we've chatting and kept up with each other through our family blogs! So it was really fun to see them...they are expecting baby girl #2 in December and they have the most adorable little girl, Mya who will be 2 in February. Brody really enjoyed his time with Mya as well, you know how he likes the ladies! Below are some cute snap shots we took while together! (bummed i didn't get any pictures of the adults!!)

Brody's first bath with a lady proved to be a good time! They were both splashing, smiling and chatting up a storm!When you spend the night at a girls house, you can expect a girly towel.

First Christmas Present

While we were home Emily, Garrett, Lauren and Andrew gave Brody his first wrapped up Christmas present. It was pretty funny watching him "unwrap" it...he wasn't sure what to do, other than put the paper in his mouth or beat on the box like a drum. I guess it just goes to show that empty boxes and paper are the best gifts! They gave him the spinning zebra which he's going to just love...he needs to grow a bit more so he can weight it down but it won't be long!As you can tell Brody doesn't look very excited about the zebra, but the truth is, no toys made him happy when he was feeling under the weather. I know he's going to have countless hours of fun on this thing!

Grandpa and Grandma's House

At Grandpa Ed and Grandma Ellen's Brody got to meet his cousins for the first time! Too bad Emily and Lauren didn't love closer as we'd have a couple of great baby sitters!

Brody got to meet more cousins!! Andrew, Lauren, Brody, Emily and Garrett.Grandma and GrandpaBrody's Buddies Future Babysitters, Em and LaurenGrandpa and Brody

Nana and Pops House

We have a ton of pictures (do note that it's virtually impossible to get smiles when you don't feel well!), these pictures were taken at Nana and Pops house.

We always laugh when we put this hat on Brody...his old man hat!

Grandfather, Brody and Jason

Grandfather and Grandma Judy (Jason's parents)

Nana getting her fix of Brody cuddle time!I know my mom is cringing that i posted this photo...but what you need to know is that Nana spent a lot of time with Brody at the wee hours of the morning when he was sick with a fever. I believe I took this at 5am. Brody with Pops and NanaBrody with my cousin Toninette, who came from Lincoln to meet Brody!

Giving Thanks...

We don't need a special holiday to give thanks...we are thankful every single day. We are blessed with an incredible family, great friends, good jobs and a roof over our head. Brody has been blessed with 3 sets of grandparents who love him very much and we were lucky enough to get them all in the same place for Thanksgiving, Nebraska! Jason's parents made the LONG drive from Maryland to spend the holidays with my parents. Of course we also made the very long trek to NE with a 10 month old, a nice 10 hour jaunt from MN through Iowa and across Nebraska...if you've ever driven that you know it's not so scenic. We left on Monday night at 7pm and drove straight through arriving in Merna around 4:30am...nice wake up call for my Mom and Wayne! Brody did well on the way out, the return a whole other story! Unfortunately he got sick and ran a high fever consistently, which took us to the Broken Bow Clinic (where i used to go when i was little) to have him checked out. He had all sorts of stuff going on, so we got an antibiotic and were on our way. Of course he didn't feel well and wasn't as chipper and happy as he typically is. The good news is that there were plenty of grandma's to make him feel better! Given he wasn't well we didn't get to make all the rounds to see additional friends and family, which was a bummer but he definitely wasn't up for it. Just in time to feel better it was time to return back to Minneapolis. We left on Saturday and drove to Council Bluffs IA to see some old Chicago friends, Darren, Erin and cute little Mya, who had relocated there. We spent the night and drove the other 6 hours on Sunday. Let me tell ya, we had a caged bear in the back seat. Nothing seemed to make him happy, he'd grab my arm and say "mama"...as in a plea for help. We tried books , toys, movies, singing...yea nothing could get us home soon enough! He was so happy to be home so he could crawl around and not be contained in his car seat. Regardless of the trials and tribulations, it was a great Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving From Our Little Pilgrim!

Look how thrilled he is to wear the pilgrim hat...can you tell he's just loving it! Ahh I used to dress up Dolly but now it's Brody...he's so much more fun than she was!!

Weekend Snap Shots...

Below are a few snap shots from the weekend. I laugh at the ones of Brody with Jason's shoe...of course like most children, they have a 1,000 other toys but typically like the things that are least expensive or aren't designed to be baby toys. We've been trying to be good about not leaving shoes around where Brody is because you know exactly where they go...into his mouth!