10 months old

10 months old!

Where has the time gone? How is my little baby now 10 months old? On one hand, it seems like he's been a part of our family forever. On the other hand, it seems like just yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital. He's doing so many fun things now and even Harrison likes to watch Barrett learn new stuff.


At the beginning of February Barrett decided he could climb the steps. I was helping Harrison with the potty in the hall downstairs and turned around to find Barrett a few steps up and grinning ear-to-ear. Lesson learned. Don't turn your back on that little guy! Now wants to crawl up the steps every chance he gets. If we don't put the gate across he never fails to make a break for the stairs and start his way on up them. He can easily climb the entire way and arches his back and gets mad at you if you stop him and bring him back down.

His top front gums have been really swollen and it's looked like teeth would be coming through any day now for over a month. Finally this week his right one came through, and it looks like his left one should be through this week. Poor guy isn't enjoying the teething thing too much so I hope he gets a break for a bit after these two pop through.

Barrett loves cars, and makes little noises when he zooms them back and forth on the ground or up on the shelves in our living room where he likes to stand and play. Thankfully we seem to have some sort of toy cars in practically every room in this house so he's pretty happy to play with them wherever he finds them.

This is one of Barrett's favorite spots to play.



He loves to stand here and zoom cars back and forth on these shelves.



For about a month now he's been pretty good at signing "all done" when he's finished eating in his high chair. If he starts to fidget or throw his food on the ground we'll ask if he's all done and then he'll sign it. If only he would sign it before he decides to decorate the ground with a smattering of sweet potatoes, corn, peas, toast, etc. And when he's finished with his milk (meaning he's drained the sippy cup, becuase 90% of the time he just chugs it) he doesn't just set it back down on his tray. Noooo, he has to spike it down on the ground as hard as he can. I guess that's his way of signing "more". Gotta work on that one.

He's also started waving, and it's SO cute! I know I'm biased, but it really is. He just started doing that in the last couple of weeks, and also is trying to say "hi" sometimes when he waves. I promise to get a good video of it posted soon!

Barrett is still a really fast crawler, but is spending more time cruising along the furniture standing up. He will also push his highchair or a kitchen chair a few steps in front of him. He's tried pushing the little shopping cart we have upstairs, but it still moves too quickly for him and he ends up falling down when doing that.

I am sure soon enough he'll be walking and I'll wish for my sweet little baby back. But for now, we are just enjoying watching him learn new fun things every day!

Happy Birthday Harrison!

I don't know that I ever thought I'd actually have a three-year old. Time is going by so quickly. He seems to be so much more grown up than he was even a few short months ago!

I'll do an update soon with all of the cool things Harrison can do. I'm just too darn tired to do it tonight. He and Barrett wear me out! 

I did feel compelled to post a few pictures of him on his actual birthday. We made a couple of cakes and some cupcakes today and Harrison had fun "helping". He loves to try the batter!

He loves to get on the counter while I'm baking.

This afternoon we played outside because it was a beautiful day. He sure makes it look fun to be three.

Playing in the front yard today.

Stink Eye to you!

After cake and a long, happy, birthday day.

The Potty

Harrison is officially potty trained!

We did a week-long potty training between Christmas and New Year's. If you want me to be honest, we were dreading it. We've had a little potty, a second little potty, and a potty seat for sometime now. None of them were appealing enough to Harrison to get him excited about using them, so we had kind of let things go hoping he'd show some interest on his own.

However, since that didn't happen and he's supposed to be PT by the time he turns three for school, we decided to go ahead and just get after it.

The first few days were kind of painful, as he was pretty resistant to the idea of the potty. He spent a lot of time in the living room watching a show sitting on his little potty waiting for something to happen. That worked...kind of, but wasn't the happiest about it. But, somewhere along the line things clicked.

We shipped him off to school that next week in underwear and he did great! He's only had a couple of accidents and those were the first couple of weeks.
Now he's an old pro and loves wearing underwear. He reminds me that the stinky diapers belong to Barrett :-)

I am sure that some day he will hate me for this picture but I just couldn't resist!

Christmas 2011

Well, it's been a month since Christmas so I thought it might be a good time to make sure we got the blog updated with all of our Christmas fun.  We had a wonderful December this year leading up to a great Christmas. Seeing all of the excitement through Harrison's eyes really made things so much fun.


Harrison had a great time with his Elf. If you aren't familiar with the Elf on a Shelf, it's a little Elf character that visits children during December and flies back to the North Pole each evening to report back to Santa about whether or not you were a good boy that day. I'll admit I did have to use the "your Elf is watching you!!!" more than once, but hey, you do what you can to get through the day some days, right?


The Elf lands somewhere different each morning when he returns, so much of the fun is looking around to see where your Elf is hiding. He also occasionally brought gifts for Harrison, which really excited him. It was so much fun to watch him wake up each morning and try to find his Elf. At night, he would ask, "Where my Elf be tomorrow?" anticipating the fun of finding him in a new spot. We definitely weren't as creative as some people we read about, but still had a lot of fun coming up with hiding places and a few mischievous things for his Elf to do.


Harrison also had fun helping us decorate the house for Christmas. When we started getting the decorations out he could not contain himself. He wanted to go through every box and touch every ornament, wreath, candle, etc. He had a lot of fun helping to decorate the tree, and for the first week or so could not keep his hands off of it. He wanted to hold all of the ornaments, touch the tree, talk about the lights on it, you name it! And, the first thing we had to do each morning as turn on the lights on the tree...so he could see to find his Elf.


We had a little tree that he put in his room, and he wanted a wreath on his door so we did that too. He was so excited to have those "special decorations" as he called them, and was pretty bummed when it was time to take them down.


I let Harrison help wrap a few things for Dad and Barrett, and he thought that was a lot of fun. In case you are wondering, he's a big fan of tape. Can't get enough of it. Bows too. Each gift should have at least two, preferably many, many more.


However, when it comes to keeping quiet about what's wrapped up, he has some work to do. He got Mark a Chick-Fil-A calendar because they go there on Saturdays sometimes. We wrapped it one afternoon, and that day when Mark came home, he took him over to the tree, pointed at the wrapped package and said in a whisper (of course), "Chick Fil A dad!". Mark had no idea what he was talking about but of course laughed when he opened it on Christmas because he remembered this.


My sister and I got my mom a mini Keurig coffee maker. We knew she wanted some Dunkin Donuts K Cups so one morning I took Harrison and Barrett with me to DD (since that's the only place they sell them) to get K Cups and Harrison got a donut. I explained to him what we were buying and why, then he enjoyed his donut happily and we went on our way. Later that day my mom arrived to celebrate Christmas with us. As Harrison is sitting in his chair enjoying a snack and catching up with her, he leans over and whispers, "coffee maker". I had walked out of the room to do something, and when I came back he was in the midst of this conversation. He looked at me knowingly, leaned over to her, and said it again!! Crazy kid!! What am I supposed to do but look at him like I have no idea what he's talking about and redirect. On Christmas Day when she opened it we learned that he had said, "Coffee maker, under the tree Nonny". Way to go Harrison. Remind me not to tell you any secrets anytime soon!


Christmas morning Harrison was so excited, he didn't know what to do first. There had been presents under the tree all along, but more showed up that morning.. He was thrilled with his new (quite large) "rig" with flatbed trailer and digger that Santa left unwrapped for him in the middle of the room. He had fun helping Barrett unwrap presents, and wanted to play with everything as he opened it. It took awhile for him to get through everything with breaks for snacks and playing, so it was a long, fun day. I am already looking forward to next year because I think the two boys will have just an awesome time.

Here are some pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Christmas Eve after church

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

Christmas morning...first present. A favorite character from Dinosaur Train!



Thanks Nonny!

Ohhhh! What is it???

I love my construction costume and tools. Thanks Aunt Susie and Uncle Charles!

Ohhh! Books! Thanks Aunt Julie and Uncle Howard!

More books!

He opened this book from Aunt Amy and Uncle Steve and wanted to read it right away.

James! A favorite train and it even turns on! Thanks Barrett!

Barrett would have been happy just to have wrapping paper, but he sure enjoyed this too.

Haircut and Spaghetti

On Saturday we finally decided it was time for Barrett to get a haircut. Too many people in the past couple of weeks had asked me if he was a girl. It was way over his ears on the sides and falling into his eyes. It had gotten pretty long!

Here we are getting ready for his haircut.

All finished! Doesn't he look handsome, and much older!

He did GREAT! He sat in my lap and just let Jackie (who cuts Harrison's hair also) wet it down and trim it away. He didn't even care that she used the trimmers to make his little sideburns and clean up the back. I think he looks much older, but still cute!


 On Sunday night we let Barrett himself spaghetti. He's had the meat sauce I make a few times before, and he seriously loves it. Tonight, we made mini wagon wheel pasta, cut the wheels in half and then mixed it in the meat sauce. Holy cow. He was just thrilled! Shoveled it in his mouth. He ate a pretty good sized bowl, and this was after he inhaled a couple of handfuls of sweet potato pieces. This kid likes to eat. Here are some of him and his spaghetti:

Barrett Update

Barrett doesn't get too many blog posts dedicated just to him, so I'll try to do him some justice and make this one all about him.


He's still as sweet as can be, so hopefully that part of his personality is here to stay. He is starting to show a stubborn side though, which at least tells me there was definitely not a mix-up in the hospital. I'd be a bit worried if Mark and I produced a kid that was just easygoing all the time.


His first tooth is about 50% in, and number two has broken through next to it and is going strong. So now when he smiles it's 95% gummy and then he just has that one little visible tooth in the middle on the bottom.


Speaking of smiling, that's what he does the majority of the time. It's rare that he's upset, and when he is, he makes sure that we all know it. He's pretty good at squawking until I pick him up, and then he's happy. At least it's an easy fix, albeit one that has made me be pretty creative about how to get things done with one hand.



Happy Boy!

His opinion of Martha Stewart's magazine is that it's only good for one thing: ripping apart!

It's getting more fun every day to watch Barrett play with toys. He is very interested in whatever Harrison is playing with, so he's always crawling all over Harrison to see what he's doing. He loves anything with wheels and knows how to roll whatever it is across the floor. He also likes to get into all of Harrison's little animals and Toy Story friends and crawl around with one in his mouth.


Barrett got a few things for Christmas that are just his speed. One of them has actually been handed down from my oldest nephew, Jeffrey--it was something he got for his first Christmas. It's a little table Barrett can kneel or stand up at and play with the bells and whistles. He loves it! It makes him so happy. He just kneels there with a big grin on his face and will happily play with it while the world goes on around him.

Another one is this toy with little egg-shaped things that spin around and slide down a ramp. He should be in an ad for this thing! He does all of the things a kid is supposed to with it, and has a great time. Here is is playing with it today:

There are a lot of things that he plays with that I would have thought were toys he wasn't quite ready for yet, simply because of when Harrison started playing with them, but Barrett is all over them. It is so interesting to see how different he is in his play, since there are so many toys around that Harrison didn't have access to at this age, simply because he didn't have the toys yet.


One example is this parking garage that Harrison got for his first birthday. It's a great simple toy, and one of Barrett's favorites. He will play with it for 15-20 minutes at a time, just continuing to put cars on the ramp. It is so fun to watch his little wheels spin in his head as he figures out how this works. Here is is playing with it December 13...not even eight months old and he's all over it!

Barrett still loves the bathtub, and now he wants to flip over and play on his stomach as soon as you put him in there. I have to wash quickly and then let him have time to play. He always cries when I take him out, even if I know he's got to be cold, playing there in cold water--he doesn't care, he just loves it!


He also finally loves to eat. At first, he really didn't want anything to do with food. I'd try feeding him, I'd let him have puffs, Mark would try to feed him, he just wasn't interested. But, he's all on board with the whole food thing now. He wants to feed himself, and he'll try anything. He loves little pieces of baked sweet potato, they are probably his favorite thing. A very close second is wheat toast with butter. If I put either of those things on his tray he will shovel pieces into his mouth as quickly as he can. He also likes dried apples, peas, and carrots. He's not too keen on things like bananas that are squishy.


Here he is chowing down this week, and he's not quite that chunky, his face is kind of at a weird angle, but he has definitely filled out (and needs a haircut)!

On January 5, Barrett pulled himself up to standing for the first time. He has been standing against things if you help him, but this is the first time we've seen him pull himself to stand on his own. I just happened to look up from the kitchen and see him grinning from ear-to-ear. He was clearly proud of himself. Then he did it again later that day.

First time he stood on his own.

Standing again later that day...look at me!

Here are a few more pictures from the last month:

Eight months old today--playing at a friend's house.



Harrison was using his friend Hunter's play doctor kit to give Barrett a shot. Harrison had a lot of fun using all of the "doctor stuff" on Barrett.



Visit with Santa Part Two

We took Harrison and Barrett to visit Santa together late one rainy afternoon the first weekend in December. Since we went to an outdoor mall the good news was that the wait wasn't long, but it was cold! We were hoping for a cute picture for our Christmas card. That clearly didn't happen!
Harrison was very excited and asked repeatedly where Rudolph was. He kind of clammed up when he got to actually talk to Santa. And then he broke the candy cane they gave him and that was the end of him. Thankfully they were kind enough to give him another one. Barrett didn't know what to think. Luckily I don't think he remembers much...Hopefully he won't hate us for this later in life.

Visit with Santa Part One

Harrison had two opportunities to visit with Santa this year. The first was at the Junior League breakfast with Santa back in November the weekend before Thanksgiving (I'm waaaay behind on our blog!!).  Harrison and I went with his friend Shane and his mom and we had a lot of fun.


I think the highlight of the morning for Harrison was meeting Rudolph. He was totally enamored with him and kept coming back to give him another hug.


He tried hot chocolate and wanted nothing to do with it. Really, he just wanted to wear his reindeer antlers and play on the floor as we waited in line to meet Santa.


When he finally had his turn to talk to Santa he was just adorable, all sweet and shy, and only asked for one thing, a big blue ball.


Here are some pictures from our morning:

I love Rudolph...even though I have NO idea who he is!

So cute :-)

Rudolph...come back...I love you!

Excited about the hot chocolate. Who wouldn't be, right? It looks great, but he wanted nothing to do with it.

Waiting in line for Santa.

Still waiting in line for Santa

Sending a few letters to Santa while we wait. I'm quite confident that if Santa had to base his gifts off of these letters he would assume Harrison wanted nothing. I think he stuffed 30 blank pieces of paper in there.

We had fun!

What a great picture!

Laughing with Santa

These are the antlers he got when he went to meet Santa. He wore them quite a bit this holiday season.