Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!

Christmas week was a little hectic for me. I procrastinated in making the gifts for my family and on top of that I had to work all week. Each night after Brigham went to bed I would make a gift before going to bed. Krystin got an apron made from pillowcases. I wanted to keep this one for myself. Derek and my dad got t-shirts I made using my Silhouette SD. Arden got a doll and sock dog, and for my mom I got 4 mismatched picture frames and painted them white. Then each frame has a letter cutout with pictures behind it. The frames spell MIMI. I hope everyone loves their gifts as much as I enjoyed being able to make them. I hope I am able to think of new ideas for everyone each year so that I can make my family's gifts every year. Anyways, I never got to bed before 1am this past week and last night I was up until 4am. I had to finish my mom and dad's gifts and then wrap Brigham's gifts and assemble his Cozy Coupe. I couldn't work on the gifts during the day because we spent the day baking treats for our families with Daniel and Katelyn and then we had Christmas dinner with all of Mark's family at his mom's house. It was a nice day and I loved having people cook with me. It was so much faster! We got home from dinner at about 10:45 and I immediately got started on the gifts for my mom and dad. I never even took off my coat and boots until much later in the night. I finished the gift making at about 1am. I then cleaned our kitchen, living room, and dining room and poured out the contents of the Cozy Coupe box so I could get to work on snapping the plastic car together. I was a little bummed that Mark didn't put the car together before he went to bed at midnight but I figured it was something that wasn't important to him or he was just hoping I would do it so he wouldn't have to. This morning he said it was because he thought we would just put it together later Christmas morning. Anyways the car took nearly 2 hours to assemble and it was a major pain. I am super grateful for the video instructions that are provided on the Little Tikes website because the instructions that came with the car was just 30 something pictures that weren't always the easiest to understand. I finally got the thing together only to realize that one of the pieces partially popped out of place and could only be fixed by removing the roof and screws. I left that for Mark to complete today. I wrapped Brigham's other 2 gifts and Mark's gifts and finally went to bed at 4am. I was pooped. I was up at 7:25am waiting for my boys to get up so they could see their presents! Brigham woke up at close to 8 and we played on the bed with Mark for about 30 minutes. He finally woke up enough to get my gifts together and we all headed to the living room. Brigham loved his toys and Mark was happy with his Ipod touch, dark chocolate truffles, and new coat. When it was my turn to open gifts I had to play Let's Make a Deal. From the beginning my plan was to always trade until I got to the last gift. The first gift I gave up was a new pair of Rainbows. The second was some used lotion from our bathroom. The third (which I went back and forth about) was a Nook color. Finally the time had come for me to see what I blindly traded these gifts for. A Kindle! It was hard to not be a little disappointed (especially after I looked at the info sheet on the Nook compared to the Kindle) but it is still a fun gift. Mark didn't buy and of the gifts yet. He is hoping to find my gift on Craigslist for a good deal.

We had breakfast with Melanie's family, Daniel, and Katelyn and then headed to my dad's for the afternoon. We are home now and waiting for the snow that is supposedly headed our way. I hope it comes. It will be the first white Christmas in Charlotte since 1947!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I can't believe it has been over a month since I have posted. I have been working a lot. I'm not sure if that is a reasonable excuse or not. There hasn't really been much going on around here. We decorated for Christmas the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year Mark was excited about decorating for the first time. He even hung lights along the roof. They are the old fashioned big bulbs and I just love it. I thought the Christmas tree was going to be a major headache with Brigham but he actually doesn't really care much about it at all. On a side note, each year we just take the ornaments off the tree and leave the lights and ribbon on it and just set it in the attic portion of the shed. Well this year when I went to take it out, there was a huge spider/cob web all over the top half of the tree. Mark pulled the tree down and cleaned the web off. He assured me that no spiders were in the tree because it had been too cold and spiders either die or go live in people's houses for the colder months. Well this morning as I was fixing our tree skirt (which is actually just 2 white bed sheets wrapped to disguise the box our tree sits on to make it taller) I see a couple spiders. I call Mark in to save me from these ferocious beasts and he finds several more spiders. Apparently they have been living in the tree all along. How gross and scary (I hate spiders and most any kind of bug). I just want to throw this tree away and start new next year with a pre-lit tree that comes with an airtight box for storing. Instead I will definitely be buying a tree bag. I think they make these and I surely hope they do. I want a bug free tree next year.

Anyways, Brigham is finally saying a word. His word of choice is AMEN. I love it. He says it at the end of every prayer and it is just too cute. He started saying this on either Wednesday or Thursday of this last week. He has also started running and he has started playing peek a boo again but instead of hiding behind a blanket, he hides behind furniture.

Our Tree

I just planted our first tree. We have wanted a tree or two for a couple years and we finally followed through a couple weeks ago. Today I actually got around to planting it.

If you look in the center of the scattered red dirt, you may be able to see a stick. That stick is our tree. The one leaf that it had left fell off while I was trying to get the tree out of its plastic container.

Here is a close up. To the left you can see the one leaf it had.

I guess I won't know until next summer if it is just a stick or an actual tree.

Happy Halloween!

We celebrated Halloween on Saturday rather than Sunday. The day started with me waking up in Davidson at the Ada Jenkins Center where I spent the night with the youth that were participating in an overnight service project at the center. This was the first night that I spent away from Brigham in his 13 months here on Earth. It was a great experience working with the youth in moving the food pantry, painting the rooms and halls at the center, restocking the new pantry, and also assembling a new walk-in cooler and freezer for the center. Everyone worked so hard on Friday that most of the work was completed by Friday night so most people came home on Saturday morning. I returned home just in time to see Brigham before he laid down for his nap. Once he got up we headed to Carowinds for the last time this year. We met up with Shannon, Justin, and Briggs' bff Kaitlyn. We spent the afternoon in the kiddie park riding anything we could with them. Then we went to the trick-or-treating that Carowinds was hosting that turned out to be pretty lame. It was crowded and there were only 4 candy stops (and they were only handing out dum dums and jolly ranchers).

This is one from the carousel. I thought Briggs was so adorable on this ride because he was actually holding onto the pole with both hands once the ride started.
This ride was pretty cute. There were these cars that rode around a track and played music from the 50's. It sounds lame but I just thought it was so cute.

We all came home and took naps and then I finished making Brigham's costume for the ward trunk-or-treat. He was Luke Skywalker and Mark was Darth Vader. Briggs' costume didn't turn out exactly how I envisioned but it worked. Since it was so cold out, we had to layer him in some long sleeve shirts under his costume so that made his "robe" not fit as well and also threw off the look a little. I couldn't find a pattern for this costume so I just used one of his shirts as a guide for how big to make the robe. For the pants I just made some baby legs and then I chut some brown jersey knit fabric into strips and wrapped it around his shoes and half way up his calf so that it looked like he was wearing boots (or whatever you call the weird Star Wars shoes that Luke wears). It was pretty cute seeing Mark hold Brigham with both of them in their costumes. Surprisingly, some people had no idea what they were. I wish I would have gotten a picture at the beginning of the night instead of the end when Brigham's costume is coming off his shoulders and is barely wrapped around him and I also wish I would have gotten Brigham's whole costume in the picture.

What Have We Been Doing?

Hanging out in our pj's all day? Not quite. Nothing too exciting really. We had pictures done on October 4th and it was so hard to pick the ones we wanted because we wanted every single one! We finally narrowed our list down and we will be getting our disc of pictures next week. I can't wait to get them so we can get pictures printed and up on our walls.

On October 5th Briggs had his 1 year check-up. He also had to get shots. He was so happy until that point. I hate shot days. It is just so pitiful. Luckily he only cried for maybe a minute then all was well with the world. We opted out of the MMR but he did get 3 other shots. We will get the MMR eventually but we wanted to limit how many vaccines he got at once.

Here are his measurements:

Height: 31 inches (90th percentile)

Weight: 21lbs 12oz (25th-50th Percentile)**compared to his height his weight is in the 8th percentile ****obviously our scale is off because in a previous post he weighed 24lbs when we weighed him at home.

Head Circumference: 47 cm (75th percentile)

He is a very happy, easy going boy. He still gets a bottle at bed time since we have the formula left. Once it is gone we may do some warm milk in his sippy cup at bed time. He loves cheese and protein shakes more than life its self it seems. He is on hiatus from eating vegetables at the moment but I hope he ends his hiatus soon mostly so that diaper changes are a little less messy. Brigham loves milk and water. He drinks so much from his sippy each day. Sometimes it is surprising at how fast he will empty his cup and be ready for a refill. He has become more cuddly which is sweet and Mark and I love to cuddle with him. His favorite toys are balls and a wooden sword that was Mark's when he was a kid. It's a fairly big sword but Briggs loves just carrying it around with him. It is rather cute. We still don't count any of his "words" as his first words because there isn't anything he says at anything specific. He has become quite the chatter box though and we love having conversations with him.

This was from the last Sunday in September before church. I just love this picture. I laughed for a few minutes because they have the same eyes.

Here is a real picture. Mark and Briggs just looked so cute with their white shirt and ties on. This picture doesn't do the moment justice but in all the other pictures one of them had crazy eyes.

Time Flies

A year ago today I was sitting in a hospital bed holding our new baby boy. When I think back over the past year, so much has happened that it seems like it was ages ago but then it also seems like there is no way that it has already been a whole year! Mark has gone back to school, I completed student teaching and received my degree and NC teaching license (which may never be used), Mark was accepted to graduate school and is taking a mixture of grad and undergrad classes, we sold the Tundra, paid off my student loans, and lots of other little things.

Briggs has grown so much. He looks so different from when he was born but you can still see him in his newborn pictures. It is so interesting. After 12 months of life here on Earth he has turned into a walking, babbling, food loving, independently playing, cuddly boy. We love him so much and are so grateful that our lives have been blessed with him.

We celebrated his birthday with family members on Sunday, September 19th. Brigham loved his birthday cake and we had to take it away after he ate half of it so that he didn't make himself sick. He also loved the toys that he received from our sweet family. Those in attendance: Grandmother, Pappy/Boppy, Auntie Becky, Uncle Paul, Mimi, Clarisa, Grandma Mooney, Melanie, Brandon, Madison, Landon, Alison, Cameron, Daniel, Katelyn, Scarlett, Nate, and Carolina.

Birthday party #2 was on Monday September 20th. It was a combined party with Kaitlyn that we had with our friends. Brigham wasn't all about this cake like he was with the one on Sunday. I just used whipped cream on the 2nd cake since it had less sugar and I'm not sure if that is why he didn't love the cake as much. It was a fun night and we were so happy to have all our friends over to celebrate Kaitlyn and Brigham's birthday.

Brigham is about 31" long and 23 pounds. He loves water, protein shakes, cheese, anything we are eating, and his fruits and veggies. We are down to one bottle a day (the nighttime one). The only reason we haven't dropped this one is because we have 2 cans of unopened formula left and 3 boxes of baby cereal that we put in the formula to thicken it.

More birthday pics:

There hasn't been anything too excited happening in these parts. Mark has been going to school and I have been working a little here and there. On August 29th, Brigham walked all around Nate and Scarlett's kitchen. We were all caught by surprise by this. After that, he would not take a single step or even stand. he would get jelly legs if you tried to stand him up. Then, the past couple of days he began taking a step here and there between the couch and coffee table or to get to a toy from where he was standing. Last night we went to Krystin and Derek's for Brigham's first birthday celebration since they are choosing to go to Disney World and 4 water parks rather than come to one of his birthday parties during his birthday week. Lame but whatever. Just kidding. Anyways, by the end of the night at their house, he was walking all around their living room. Once again, we were caught by surprise. I figured this must be it, he is walking now! HA! This morning the kid has his jelly legs back. I half expected that to happen. I think I even said that would be the case when he was walking last night. He start walking eventually this morning but still nothing like last night. I believe we are well on our way to having a walking boy and that is exciting!

This is a picture of Brigham's first trip to Krispy Kreme. This from last Saturday when we were on our way home from Matthews Alive! He loved it. The kid isn't a huge fan of baby food unless it is vegetables but he loves anything we are eating.

This is from one of our many trips to Yoforia. We all absolutely love that place. We eat there about once a week. It has made us not enjoy ice cream very much. In this picture, Mark piled one of the taster cups full of frozen yogurt for Brigham. Brigham Stats and Facts:

He is 31 1/4" long as of August 25th

He weighs 24 pounds as of last week

He is down to just 1 bottle a day and it is the bed time bottle. We have 3 brand new containers of formula so he may continue getting this bottle until all the formula is gone or we my just put it in his sippy cup. We haven't really decided yet.

11 Months

Brigham hit this milestone while we were in Tennessee. The boy LOVES the vacuum and HATES for his face to be wiped. He loves food and wants whatever you are eating. He hates the stage 3 baby food meals (spaghetti and meatballs, chicken with mixed veggies, ect). The picture above is how meal time ends up when it consists of the food he doesn't like. He knocks the spoon away and clinches his jaw so you can't put any in his mouth. It is quite entertaining although messy. He will eat any table food we give him but he refuses to eat the baby food. He loves to carry around/chew on the Desitin tube and the sunblock tube. He hates when Mark barks like a dog.

I am starting the planning for his first birthday parties. We will have to have more than one because we can't have all our friends and family here at the same time since our house is on he small end.

He eats at least 3 containers or the equivalent a day and 3 6-7 ounce bottles per day. He will walk sometimes if you are walking with him and let go of his hand quickly but then sits down as soon as he can. I am beginning to wonder if he will walk before he is a year old. We still aren't sure if he says "mom" and "dad" on purpose or not. He jibbers all day but as far as we can tell, he still hasn't said anything that we consider his first word.

Brigham is a sweet boy that laughs at almost anything. The easiest ways to get him to laugh are to say "boo" or to bite his legs and feet. These are almost guaranteed to get him going. Sometimes he will even put his foot into your mouth so that you will bite him. He is very social and never meets a stranger. We love that.

Chattanooga

This past Thursday morning Mark and I loaded up the Jetta and took Brigham to Tennessee to visit with his great aunt and uncle and also his great grandma. We were on the road during his 3 hour afternoon nap time and he only slept one hour. He isn't a big fan of sleeping in the car. I think this is mostly because he is a belly sleeper and the car seat prevents any belly sleeping from happening at all. Luckily I was able to keep him happy and entertained and the trip there went smoothly. This was his longest trip to date and we were pleased with the results.

On Friday we went to lunch at a local diner and then got a tour of Magister. Mark requested a tour so he could put a place with the stories they tell of the company they run. By this point Brigham was beyond tired and he would yell then laugh over and over. Before finally heading back to their place we stopped by my grandma's since we were only 5 minutes away. This was the first time that Briggs and my grandma met. Brigham loved her coasters for some reason so we were all able to enjoy our visit! We had dinner prepared for us and enjoyed the rest of the evening staying home and talking and of course playing with Briggs and the dogs.

On Saturday we went to a zip line and high ropes course. Mark and I went first and my aunt and uncle took care of Brigham. It took us 2 hours to get through the course but it was a lot of fun. My aunt and uncle opted out of going through the course because it was so hot and since they can go anytime we just went on to the aquarium. After that, we headed home for dinner.

We came home Sunday morning in record time and Brigham did great.. It was a great trip and we look forward to going back for another visit!

The Boy is Growing Up So Fast!

Just had to post a quick note that today Brigham climbed onto our coffee table with no help and he acted as if he does it all the time. I couldn't believe my eyes! He wanted a pair of sunglasses that was on the table so he lifted his leg onto the table and pulled himself up, crawled to the glasses and had a seat as chewed on them. I guess we can no longer leave the room while he is in there! The battery was dead on our camera so I couldn't get a picture of it but I am sure I will have plenty more chances to get one. I feel so lucky to have Brigham and Mark. They are so much fun! I am just so blessed.

Update

Wow, I can't believe I haven't updated in a month! I guess we have been busy around here. Mark is continuing with school and he is doing great! He is making all A's for the 3rd semester in a row. He will have a week and a half off starting Wednesday until the start of the fall semester. We have debated many things that we could do on this break but I think we will be going to Tennessee to visit my aunt and uncle next weekend. Ideally, I would like for us to be able to find an affordable bed and breakfast in Charleston in September for us to stay at for a weekend. We plan on going to Vegas in October when Mark has fall break. I still don't have a job for the fall and I don't really have any prospects. School is starting in our area over the next 2 weeks depending on the school and the school system. Hopefully I will be able to find a job somewhere working at least 30 hours a week.

Brigham turned 10 months old almost 3 weeks ago. I can't believe he is almost a year old! Since he turned 10 months his top two front teeth have broken through (this happened last week) and he crawled and took his first steps in the same day. This happened on this past Friday (Aug. 6th). He has been army crawling for a while and he had kind of crawled over the past month but suddenly on Friday he was crawling around our whole house. We couldn't believe it. Since then he will army crawl if he is in a rush and crawl normal if he isn't. He actually took his first steps on Thursday night. It was completely unexpected and it was only a few steps but he did it! I was the only one to see it though. The next night Mark was walking with him down the hall and let go and Brigham just kept going for 10-15 steps. Mark was the only one to witness these steps because I was in the kitchen. He has taken a few steps every now then since this but not as many as on that night. Hopefully he will be walking full time soon but I'm not getting my hopes up. He is pretty content as it is.

At 10 months he is still napping 2 times a day. His morning nap is from about 10-12. Occasionally he goes to sleep earlier if he was up late the night before. His afternoon nap is from about 2:30 or 3 until 6. Bedtime is 8:30. He gets 3 bottles that are 7oz a day mixed with a tablespoon or so of baby cereal. He gets prunes every morning and a vegetable for lunch. For dinner he gets a fruit or vegetable and maybe some of what we are having. He has become a pro at the sippy cup. We no longer have to hold the cup for him. The little man LOVES water. He drinks it in the shower, bathtub, pool, wherever he can get it. He is a sweet happy boy that we just love to pieces. His 1st birthday will be here before we know it and I have all kinds of ideas in my head for things to use for our celebration. Hopefully I can get everything made that I want for him.

Last week I watched Carolina for a couple hours on 2 days. Brigham loves her. He just get enough. His favorite thing to do is take her pacifier away from her until she starts crying then he tries to put it back in her mouth. These attempts were usually unsuccessful so I would help him. When she stopped crying, he would take it away again. This is his new favorite game I guess.

He also gave her lots of kisses/licks.

This picture doesn't do this moment justice. The boy LOVES to eat. If he sees you with food or a drink, he will climb all over you to get some. He eats anything we give him and can never seem to get enough. He gets so excited about it too. It is so funny to watch him.

Baby Showers and What Not

I have spent the past couple weeks preparing for 2 showers that I was throwing for Scarlett this week. There was so much I wanted to do but I wasn't able to accomplish. I made sweet Carolina a diaper cake, quilt, and mobile for her room. It was my first time making a diaper cake and mobile and both were fairly easy and didn't take much time at all! We went with a bird theme for the showers and I would have liked it to have been a little more obvious that we had a theme but who really remembers these things anyways? I made bird nest favors by shaping no-bake cookies into a nest shape and putting a Jordan Almond in the nest for the egg. I made cupcakes for the Saturday shower and toasted coconut and placed it on the cupcakes to look like a nest with 2 Jordan Almonds in the nest. The mobile consisted of 4 birds (that Mark drew the template for) that hung by a ribbon. I didn't get a picture of it but if I must say so myself, I thought it was pretty darn cute. It hung on our dining room hanging light for 2 days and I grew quite fond of it.

In other news, Brigham isn't so fond of crawling anymore. He prefers to walk everywhere. The only problem is that he can't walk unless you are holding his hands so we spend a lot of time walking around our house and it gets quite boring. He is also bored with his toys. I need to go yard sale-ing to get him some new stuff. Hopefully I will be able to score some this Saturday. Last week Brigham wasn't his usual sweet self. He was cranky and not very fun to be around. Turns out, (we assume) that he was cranky because he was off schedule. We were out late a lot last week and the week before and it just totally jacked him up. This last week was much better and we were all happier. We only kept him out late twice. Once was Monday night for fhe and this is the case every Monday that we aren't hosting. The second time was last night when we went to dinner with Nate, Scarlett, Carolina, Daniel, and Katelyn. After dinner we went to my very favorite place, Yoforia. It is a fabulous frozen yogurt place. Brigham was his normal, social self and was making friends with the dogs and strangers that were getting yogurt also. Everyone was watching him and commenting on how cute and funny he was and how he looks exactly like Mark. I thought that was funny because just hours before, our neighbor was telling Mark that Brigham looks exactly like me.

Brigham's newest skill: Pulling himself up. He has been doing this for about 2 weeks now. I love going into his room in the morning or after nap time to see him standing up waiting for us to rescue him.

Here are some pictures from the shower today at Nate and Scarlett's. I don't have any pictures from the shower earlier in the week.

That is my very favorite picture of Scarlett from today and possibly ever. ( You can also see my diaper cake lingering in the background.)

We love you Scarlett and Carolina and we are so grateful that we were a part of the celebration of Carolina's birth.

The New Toy

Mark converted an old diaper box into a "wagon." Brigham was a little confused at first but he eventually enjoyed himself.

Fourth of July Celebrations (in reverse order)

Watching the downtown fireworks from the top floor of the Midtown Target parking deck with friends and family. Brigham was absolutely mesmerized by the fireworks. This is our friend Dustin's mom holding Brigham. He sat with her till the end of the show.

This is the cake I made for our dinner with some friends and family before we went to watch the fireworks. I had to wait for the cake to be cut before I could find out if it worked and actually looked like a cake. It started to look a little mutilated by the time I got a picture of it.

The next few pictures are from the Indian Trail parade on July 3rd. It is the parade I grew up going to and Mark indulges me each year by continuing the tradition and driving the 30 minutes it takes to see it each year.

Mark's caption for this picture is "He is learning young." This picture has nothing to do with the fourth of July. It was taken July 2nd. I am just too lazy to put it in its own post.

Go Faster!!

I just love this picture. It is one of my favorites!