Spooktacular

We broke in the Halloween costumes yesterday by attending Spooktacular at Sunset Zoo in Manhattan. 

Buzz's sleeves are bit too long, but he managed to survive.

 At home he just threw the biggest fit about putting on his costume and heading out.  He wanted to stay home.  What kid doesn't want candy?  But once we got there he was all about the candy.

 Our little ladybug.  We'll hopefully get a better picture tonight.  She hung out in the baby carrier the entire time and was just happy as could be.

 We ran into some good friends at the zoo.  It was wonderful to see Strawberry Shortcake and Optimus Prime (or at least I hope it's Optimus Prime; it was something Transformers-related).

 See?  Told you he was loving the candy.

 And he still loves to chase the peacocks.  Pretty sure those birds are getting sick of seeing him at the zoo.

 Come here birdy!!

Wildcat Girl

Our happy, little Wildcat this morning.  Isn't she adorable? 

 Ooh, what's this on my feet?  These socks have sparkles? Sweet!

 I wanna touch these sparkle socks

 Look at me!  I'm playing with my sparkly feet.

Pushing up

Pictures of our little girl pushing her chest off the ground.  She's getting so strong and really enterting that stage where she's learning something new every day.  The next few months will be a lot of fun. 

 And much to her brother's disappointment, her favorite toys are not the baby toys but rather the numberous car and trucks. 

 Yuuuummmm, this truck's tire tastes good.

It's so hard to sit up

Little Miss B can sit on her own now, albeit for very short periods of time and usually by leaning on her arms.  But that's how you start!

 I set her on the floor near the kitchen the other night and she managed to stay put long enough for Mom to catch a picture of it.

Somebody else in this family also started sitting up at the age of 6-months.  Brady was a little more upright, but cute to see how they both lean on their arms for support.

Sitting on bed

Part of our morning routine includes setting Brenna in the middle of our bed while Brian and I finish getting ready.  We'll not be able to do this much longer because she is getting too mobile, but it's enjoyable while it lasts.

What a pretty smile!

 Pushing up on her arms.  She can push her chest off the ground now, I just don't have a good picture of it yet.

 How can you not love this face?

6 months old!

Brenna is 6-months old today.  Yikes!  Half a year. 

She got her 6-month shots this morning along with a flu shot and survived that fun, little experience.  She weighs in at 13 pounds, 12 ounces, which is in the 11th percentile.  She is 25.5 inches tall, which is the 42 percentile.  The doctor was very happy with her numbers. 

 No picture session is complete unless Brady can join in. 

At 6 months old Brenna is still not sleeping through the night (this fact is what's most important to Mom!), but the tough love approach started last night and will continue, so that should change in the next month. She still doesn't have a regular nap schedule; sometimes she cat naps throughout the day and other times she'll take a nap for an hour or two.

 She is a very happy, smiley girl and typically only gets fussy when she's hungry or tired.  She sucks her thumb on both hands and now usually sleeps on her stomach since she can roll over.

She can roll from her back to her stomach and then stomach to back and she does that quite often.  She pushes up on her arms and manages to scooch around wherever she wants to go. 

She's eaten sweet potatoes, carrots and squash in addition to cereal and will be branching out into more vegetables soon. 

She remains extremely fascinated by her brother and continues to just watch him as he plays around the house.  She loves being outside and she also loves to play and roll around on the floor.  She is putting EVERYTHING into her mouth and gumming and drooling like there's no tomorrow. 

More to come later this week!

Ultimate diving video(s)

We had a very big night at swimming lessons night.  #1 - we had no tantrums or breakdowns.  That's always a good thing.  #2 - Brady asked and was allowed to jump off the diving board.

A little prelude to the diving board action.  Before class started we were sitting in the bleachers and watched 2 guys as they jumped off both the low diving and high diving boards.  One guy was okay, the other one almost belly flopped off the high dive.  Apparently viewing the diving action got Brady interested in doing a little more advanced jumping himself.

So at the end of class he asked if he could jump off the diving board.  The teacher obliged and off he went.  She waited in the water for him while Brian took him to the board.  Apparently with most children, mom or dad would need to walk them down the board to the edge and coax them to jump in the water.  Well, not with this kid!  No coaxing needed.  He climbs up the ladder, walks down the board and jumps right in. 

And he jumped off the diving board not once, but twice.

Can you guess what he said after jumping off the diving board twice?

"Daddy, I jump off that one?"   *pointing to the high diving board*

What have we created?!

Swimming videos galore

More swimming videos.  I was a video machine last night!

Swimming

Jumping

Swimming

Jumping

More swimming

Doing some doggie paddle here and learning how to move both our arms and our feet at the same time.

The kid is so excited about jumping I can barely catch it on video at times!

A better video of the jumping.

Stay tuned; last night involved a very important First for Brady in the water!

Swim lessons

We are once again in the midst of swim lessons.  Brady is taking the Parent/Tot class through UFM up at the Natatorium on K-State's campus. 

Stepping down into the water.  Thank goodness for indoor pools.  This one isn't heated so it does get a little chilly, but at least it's inside!

 Working on our dog paddle.  The instructor tries to have the kids practice various skills including moving your arms and kicking your feet at the same time. 

 Climbing out of the pool.  Brady's favorite part of swim lessons is getting out and jumping back in. 

 Much as he loves jumping, Brady DOES NOT like to float on his back.  He has definitely not mastered that skill yet. 

 Much to our embarrassment, he has a major breakdown if you try to make him float on his back.  As in, mouth wide open and screaming at the top of our lungs.  It usually ends in him standing outside of the pool and just pouting until he can jump again.  It's really great fun for his parents during these tantrums *she says dripping with sarcasm*.

Outtakes

Apparently I'm in a blog-posting mood today, so here's another one to entertain you.  Lest you think all of the pictures we take of our children turn out good, here are some outtakes from yesterday's portait sesson.

 Whoa, just a little on the bright side with that flash.  Tone it down, will ya?

 2nd picture with her mouth wide open like that.  And I had just fed her.  She's hit the stage where anything she can grab goes straight to her mouth.  So really, she's just being prepared by keeping it open!

 And a little grin.  What a cutie pie!

More from White Day

Brady insisted on putting on his backpack while we were getting ready yesterday morning. 

 Notice the slight shiner underneath his right eye.  Yeah, that hasn't improved yesterday.  This morning it was all red and even more bruised.  Pretty typical that he's got at least one bruise at any given point in time given how rough he plays.

 All ready!

The day care Brady and Brenna attend is beginning to teach the toddlers colors and the letters of the alphabet.  Each week we have a color, which is what you wear on Wednesday, and also a letter of the alphabet.  This week the letter is F, so on Friday the kids need to take something for show & tell that starts with the letter F (I'm thinking fire truck).

The color for this week is white.  I already relayed my feelings about children wearing white (as in children shouldn't wear white because you know they're just going to get it dirty!) and they just laughed at me.

So, yesterday we dressed up the kids in white.  Brady has one white shirt.  Fortunately Brenna has an outfit that matches her brother's shirt, so we had to take some morning pictures. 

 This is what happens when a 2-year-old tries to pick up a baby.  We're obviously still learning the meaning of the term "gentle."

 But they are quite amused with each other.  I'm quite excited to watch them grow up together.  As Brenna grows into her personality more, Brady interacts with her and it's just so much fun to watch.

Phone

A couple of weeks ago Brady INSISTED that we call the grandparents.  Insist.  I haven't a clue why, but once we finished dinner he was adamant that we call Nana and Papaw. 

So, we pulled out the phone and made some calls.  We couldn't really understand everything he was talking about, but as you can tell by the pictures below he was very happy to talk and quite animated when speaking. 

I fear we may have created a phone-loving monster.  Now when he sees Mom or Dad's phone he picks it up, brings it to us, and in the sweetest voice possible says "We call Papaw?"